Swedish Project Management in Multicultural Groups - is - DiVA

Swedish Project Management in Multicultural Groups- is adaptation necessary?

1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND 11.2 PROBLEM DISCUSSION 21.3 PURPOSE 31.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 31.5 TARGET GROUP 41.6 DELIMITATION 41.7 DISPOSITION 4

2 METHOD 7

2.1 WHICH IS OUR SCIENTIFIC APPROACH? 72.2 WHERE DID WE START? 102.3 HOW DID WE GO ABOUT? 122.3.1 OUR CHOICE OF STUDY 122.3.2 THE COLLECTION OF DATA 122.3.3 THE INTERVIEWS 142.4 SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT OUR PROCEDURE 16

3 WHAT IS SO DIFFERENT WITH A PROJECT? 19

3.1 WHAT IS A PROJECT? 193.2 WHY USE THE PROJECT FORM? 213.3 THE PROJECT GROUP 223.3.1 BALANCED GROUPS 233.3.2 JUST A PLAIN APPLE PIE OR A TROPICAL MIXED ONE? 25

4 MANAGEMENT 27

4.1 PROJECT MANAGEMENT 274.2 THE PROJECT MANAGER – A MAN IN BETWEEN 284.3 PROJECT- VS. CLASSICAL MANAGEMENT 314.4 MANAGEMENT BEHAVIOURS 324.4.1 MANAGERIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 334.4.2 POWER AND INFLUENCE 344.4.3 CONTROL 354.5 THE SWEDISH WAY OF MANAGING 37


4.6 MANAGEMENT IN MULTICULTURAL PROJECTS 38

5 CULTURE 41

5.1 CULTURAL DIMENSIONS 445.1.1 HOFSTEDE’S CULTURAL DIMENSIONS 445.1.2 GUDYKUNST’S CULTURAL DIMENSIONS 475.1.3 TROMPENAARS’ CULTURAL DIMENSIONS 485.2 COMMUNICATION 515.2.1 COMMUNICATION IN A MULTICULTURAL ENVIRONMENT 52

6 EMPIRICAL DATA 55

6.1 INTRODUCTION 556.2 PROBLEMS COMMON IN MULTICULTURAL PROJECTS 566.2.1 LANGUAGE 566.2.2 MISUNDERSTANDINGS 576.2.3 COMMUNICATION PATTERNS AND THE SWEDISH MANAGEMENT STYLE 586.2.4 PERSONALITY GOES A LONG WAY 596.2.5 HOW SERIOUS ARE THE PROBLEMS? 606.3 HOW TO AVOID CULTURAL CLASHES 606.4 WHEN IN ROME… 616.5 CHARACTERISTICS OF A MULTICULTURAL PROJECT MANAGER 636.6 PROS AND CONS WITH MULTICULTURAL PROJECTS 64

7 ANALYSIS 67

7.1 THE PROJECT 677.1.1 ITS STRUCTURE 677.1.2 ITS PURPOSE 677.1.3 ITS MEMBERS 687.2 PROJECT MANAGEMENT 697.2.1 MANAGEMENT BEHAVIOUR 707.2.2 ADAPTING THE CONTROL METHODS IN PROJECTS 727.3 CULTURE 737.3.1 CULTURAL DIMENSIONS 747.3.2 HOW TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY 76

8 CONCLUSIONS 79


BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDIX 1



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1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Having chosen to take a degree in international business, wehave had many opportunities to meet people from differentcultures. These encounters have, we believe, made our livesricher, but they have not always been problem-free. Whendifferent cultures come together, the differences inevitablybecome apparent. Being among friends, one can maybe laugh atthese differences or it may be a good opportunity to get peopleto talk to each other, taking the time to explain why they dothings a certain way. Being at work and experience thesedifferences might not at all have the same ice-breaking effect –rather the opposite sometimes.

Whether we like it or not, everyday we can see signs in oursociety that it is becoming more and more influenced by othercultures. Globalisation is a fact and people literally fight for itsbeing or non being. We have for some centuries, as a smallcountry, somehow been dependent on other countries andbeing part of the EU has enhanced this situation.Internationalisation is an ongoing process in many companiesand people are trying to find a balance between adjusting andnot giving up one’s own culture. It is more and more commonto have to work and co-operate with people from differentcultures. Many Swedish companies place Swedes abroad torepresent the company, some people see an internationalorganisation as a great opportunity to travel and live in adifferent culture for a couple of years, others prefer to workshorter period of time abroad on a project.1

Working in projects have become very popular lately2 butpeople have always, in some sense, been working in differenttemporary constellations when performing certain tasks. In the

1 Employee at Atlas Copco, 20002 Ögård &Gallstad, 1999


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12th century, for example, the Swedish kings brought togethermercenaries from different European countries to fight forthem3. It is a fact that different people are good at differentthings and this should speak for positive effects when gatheringa group of people with various knowledge and experience.However, pulling people together for a shorter period of timeto work on a specific project has never been an easy task. Thedifferences between people from different parts of a country aswell as their educational background have been a potentialsource of conflicts in a project work-group.

1.2 Problem Discussion

We have in previous courses at the University had theopportunity to study the issue of how a manager of amulticultural workforce should behave and what that personneeds to be aware of. After a while, we noticed that a lot of theliterature that can be found in this subject are influenced by theAmerican culture and the American way of writing. One reasonis that many of the authors that have treated this specific subjectare Americans, but there are other authors as well. Most of thebooks we have read have compared other cultures to theAmerican one, have discussed how a manager (American,tacitly understood) should deal with problems that occur at aworkplace due to cultural differences and have thoroughlytreated the problems that Americans encounter when workingabroad. Being Swedes ourselves, we cannot always identifyourselves in these books. Since there are more people than justthe Americans that manage multicultural work forces, we havea strong feeling that literature on this subject, focusing on othercultures as well, is needed.

Different nationalities need to adjust in different ways to a moreinternational environment and we are interested in looking athow the Swedes, in management positions, need to adjust. InSweden there are many international companies that have a lot

3 Guillou, 1999


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of their personnel stationed abroad for a longer period of time.These people learn to adjust to the culture in the country theylive in and some people even have difficulties returning toSweden after many years abroad. We have chosen to focus onpeople that spend shorter periods of time abroad andspecifically on projects. Many of these people might have hadexperience from different countries around the world. Furtherwe hope that they might be more objective about the culturaldifferences they encounter since they spend shorter periods oftime abroad and probably have closer contact with Swedenwhen being on projects. We are investigating whether there areproblems that specifically Swedish managers encounter and ifthere are situations that these Swedish managers need to beaware of when working with many different cultures.

1.3 Purpose

With this thesis we will investigate if a Swedish projectmanager has to adapt his/her management style depending onthe diversity of the ethnical background of the project workers.If that is the case, in what ways do they need to adapt?

1.4 Research questions

In order to fulfil our purpose we have had to treat severalquestions that in some way touch this subject. We have listedthese questions, as research questions, that we felt werenecessary to investigate. The answers have helped us to reach adeeper understanding in the subject and have, in that way, beenof great importance when fulfilling the purpose of this thesis.

� Do problems and conflicts occur and if so of what kind arethey?

� Can we see traces of nationally based problems or are theyrelated to the differences in the educational background?


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� What role does the national culture play in a group of peoplefrom different countries?

� Is it important for a project manager to have knowledge ofcultural differences, and in that case why?

� What are the most important differences of a Swedishleadership style in comparison with other nationalities?

1.5 Target group

The main target group for this thesis is Swedish project leaderseven though we believe that students within the field ofbusiness, and in specific international business, could find thisreport of interest.

1.6 Delimitation

When it comes to the term multicultural group we define it, inthis thesis, as a group of people of different nationalities. We donot include differences in religion, gender, sexual preferenceetc. in the definition.

When we discuss culture, we refer to the national culture anddo not include other aspects.

1.7 Disposition

In the next chapter we will present how we have conducted ourstudy. We will further reveal our way of looking at science andwhich approach we have had to our problem.

Following the method chapter is our frame of reference. Wehave chosen to divide this part into three chapters where we in


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the first chapter treat project theories, in the second chaptermanagement theories and finally discuss theories on cultureand the role it plays on the way we communicate. The divisioninto three chapters is necessary we believe, since the purposewe have with this thesis touches all three parts.

In the sixth chapter we will present our empirical findingswhich is a summary of the interviews that we have conducted.

In the analysis that follows, we have applied our empiricalfindings on the theories presented in the third, fourth and fifthchapter to see if these correspond to reality. Our own opinionsand thoughts on the findings will also be given.

The last chapter is devoted to the conclusion where we sum upour findings and answer our purpose and research questions.


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2 Method

This chapter will show the reader how we have approachedour problem. It is meant as a guide that will explain to thereader how we have conducted our research, based on ourperception of science and our attitude towards it.

In general there are several ways of doing things. When havinga broken car, for example, one can either fix it oneself, bring itto a mechanic or take it to the scrap-yard and buy a new car. Tobe able to choose the best way to handle the problem with thebroken car, it is necessary to know why the car does notfunction, if there is something that can be done to fix it and thepros and cons of each alternative available, as well as financialrestraints.

This was a simplified example of what is necessary to have inmind when performing a study. First one must know why thestudy is being done, what is one investigating? Having definedthis and the purpose it is time to decide how to reach the goal;which theories need to be used to reach a deepercomprehension of the subject and how to gather the empiricaldata. The data can be collected in various ways and themethods chosen to collect it, as well as from what point of viewone looks upon it, will have an important effect of the results.

2.1 Which is our scientific approach?

We have created pre-understanding by studying the subjectmore in depth, which will be shown in the frame of reference.This knowledge have formed the basis of the interviews that wehave conducted on a number of people with personalexperience of multicultural project work. We also haveinterpreted these conversations, along with the behaviour wehave studied while drawing our own subjective conclusions.With this information we have created a new understanding ofthe subject since we have added our own research study to the


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empirical data. Since our empirical study is based totally oninterviews where people’s personal opinions and attitudesshow, it is practically impossible to remain objective as aresearcher.

The process described above is our interpretation of a, mainly,hermeneutic approach since pre-understanding, as wementioned earlier, is an important concept within thehermeneutics. This means that to be able to understand andinterpret a phenomenon a person has to have a certain pre-understanding. To be able to understand how the human heartfunctions, it is necessary to have some knowledge about thehuman body.4 This pre-understanding will help the researcherdevelop interesting and important questions, problems, ideas,hypothesis etc. to be able to start the search for empirical datathrough interviews, observations and written material. Thecharacteristic of the hermeneutic approach is that the researcherinterprets the empirical data, creates a deeper understandingfor the subject and then continues his/her search for moreempirical data. This process is also called the hermeneuticspiral and we have illustrated it below.5

Source: Eriksson & Widersén-Paul, 1999

4 Thurén, 19965 Lundal & Skärvad, 1999

Newunderstanding

Interpretation

i

c

a

Pre-understanding

Newunderstanding

Interpretation

EmpiricalData

EmpiricalData


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Another reason for stating that we have an hermeneuticapproach is that a hermeneutic scientist uses his/her ownvalues, experiences and memories to come to an understandingof different phenomena. Feelings can be an important source ofknowledge that is unreachable through reason only. It is neitherpossible nor always desirable to do an entirely neutral research.Personal experiences are often required to be able to reachscientific knowledge. The actual word “hermeneutics” can betranslated as ”the art of interpretation”.6 Interpretation isfundamental within the hermeneutic point of view and it ismainly about interpreting behaviours, texts or conversations,hence meaning that knowledge can be subjective. However, themajor problem with this discipline is how sure one can be thatone’s own experience and memories are true since there is noway to prove this.7

Further, the hermeneutic procedure presumes that a completeunderstanding of the subject investigated can be obtained byinterpreting what exists in people’s consciousness and bring ittogether to a totality.8 This can be compared to what we havedone during our research. We conducted interviews withdifferent people and then tried to put the answers andcomments together to obtain a picture of the totality.

But are there some alternatives to the hermeneutic approach?And what makes this approach not suitable for our research?

The hermeneutic discipline arose as a criticism of thepositivism.9 But which were the thoughts of the positivists? Thepositivistic tradition is originally an occidental way of thinkingwhere one seeks true knowledge. The term was born during the19th century in France by Auguste Comte. It refers to the factthat they wanted to create positive, i.e. certain, knowledge.According to positivistic advocates this knowledge can only be

6 Lundal & Skärvad, 19997 Eriksson & Wiedersheim-Paul, 19998 Ibid9 Thurén, 1996


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obtained in two ways, through objective observations and ourlogical way of thinking.10

According to the positivistic view a truth has to correspond toreality. To be able to call a truth scientific it must be possible toprove it both empirically and logically. Examples of non-scientific truths are religious statements, feelings and values. Atypical positivistic research is characterised by observing thereality and collecting facts about it. Patterns and regularities ofthe truth can be observed after having collected a sufficientquantity of information. This could lead to general conclusions.Science grows as more and more facts are gathered and as moregeneral conclusions can be drawn.11 In our research we havegathered information from various people with experience asproject managers, and this could be seen as collecting factsabout the reality, hence giving our research a positivistic angle.However, the facts we have obtained from our interviews arequite subjective and can not be empirically proven since otherpeople might think differently.

2.2 Where did we start?

When formulating our purpose, we imagined it possible that aSwedish project manager needs to adjust his/her managementstyle according to the project group’s ethnical composition. Thiscould be interpreted as a hypothesis that has not beenformulated and that would indicate deductive features in ourapproach. According to Thurén, a deductive approachimplicates that a researcher formulates a hypothesis usingalready existing knowledge. The hypothesis is then empiricallytested to be able to increase the knowledge in this matter. Thismeans that the hypothesis does not have to be completely true;accordance with the future reality is not necessary. One way ofusing this approach is to seek empirical evidence for onehypothesis at the time to be able to exclude an erroneous

10 Eriksson, Wiedershein-Paul, 199911 Lundal & Skärvad, 1999


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hypothesis at an early stage. This way both empirical evidenceand logic are being used to come as close as possible to thecorrect conclusion.12

However, our empirical data is the starting point that will beused when drawing conclusions and our purpose is not toverify or falsify a certain hypothesis. Therefore, we findourselves to have a mainly inductive approach. When havingthis approach, the researcher collects empirical data on aspecific phenomenon, to be able to draw general conclusionsfrom the findings. These conclusions are made from a finitenumber of observations.13

In its strict form, neutral observations are a prerequisite fordrawing general conclusions. This form has been questionedsince this method is not directly applicable when studyingsocial systems. The neutral observation does not exist since thepeople in the system all have subjective points of view that theresearcher is exposed to.14 We have also observed the difficultywith neutral observations when conducting our interviews. Aswe have mentioned before we have tried to be as open mindedas possible when looking at the information obtained.However, we discovered that it is not easy to remain totallyobjective, but on the other hand objectivity is not alwaysdesirable. In our case it was necessary to interpret the datacollected (that in itself was subjective from the beginning)which became subject to our own values and preconceptions.The problem that arises from this is that one can never be a100% sure of the veracity of the findings since this approach isbuilt upon empirical data that seldom is complete15.

12 Thurén, 199613 Ibid14 Wigblad, 199515 Thurén, 1996


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2.3 How did we go about?

To acquire pre-understanding and obtain a relevant andinteresting frame of reference for this subject we have lookedinto some of the existing theories on management andleadership in general as well as project management, projectgroups and culture. This information was obtained from booksand articles found at the library and on the Internet.

2.3.1 Our choice of study

Having created a theoretical base and pre-understanding forour study we continued by starting to collect the empiricalmaterial needed. We would like to think of our research as acase study since it complies with several of the characteristicsmentioned by Merriam. It is focusing on one particularoccurrence (the project manager’s necessity to adjust his/hermanagerial style), it is based mainly on an inductive discussionand with this study we mean to give the reader a betterunderstanding of the mentioned occurrence.16 Further, with theinformation collected we want to see if there exists anyrelationship between the ethnical composition of a group andthe managerial style implemented by the project manager. Thiswould give the study features of an interpreting case study17.

2.3.2 The collection of data

Qualitative and quantitative methods are both tools applicablewhen carrying out an investigation18. Since our research dealswith human behaviour and subjective perceptions we havechosen to use a qualitative study where we have performedinterviews with project managers. The qualitative methodemphasises the scientist’s own perceptions or interpretationsregarding the subject investigated, which makes it impossible,or at least improper, to transform into numbers. In a qualitative

16 Merriam, 199417 Ibid18 Holme & Solvang, 1997


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investigation one seeks thorough information from a smallnumber of units and focus is put on unique opinions, feelingsand possible deviations e.g. by personal interviews. Using thismethod will give a description and an understanding of thephenomenon that is being studied.19

The quantitative method on the other hand is characterised bytransforming the information obtained into numbers andquantities and then using it for statistical analysis. This methodinvestigates the area in width; one collects little informationfrom a large number of units and uses it to describe or explain acertain phenomenon e.g. by questionnaires. The results aremeant to give a picture of the situation in general.20

We do not believe that a quantitative study would have givenus the possibility of reaching beyond the surface and getting theinterviewees’ thoughts and opinions since the quantitativealternative does not make it possible to make attendantquestions and discuss the answers given to the initial question.

However, the two types of research methods are not in any waycompeting with one another, on the contrary, the two elementscan with advantage be combined in the same investigation.With their strengths and weaknesses they complement eachother and seize a more overall picture of the subject ofinvestigation.21 It could have been meaningful for our researchto have conducted some kind of quantitative survey as asupplement to the interviews. This could have given us an ideaof the general tendencies among project leaders of adapting themanagerial style depending on the group’s composition ofnationalities. Our time frame was however limited and we hadto restrict our research to including only a qualitative study.

19 Holme & Solvang, 199720 Ibid21 Ibid


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2.3.3 The interviews

Project managers were chosen as interviewees since we believethat they probably are the ones that have the best overview ofthe conflicts and problems that occur frequently as well as theyare the ones who know if and how they change theirmanagerial style according to the groups’ composition ofnationalities. Further, our purpose focuses on Swedishmanagers and therefore these have been the targets of ourinterviews.

We chose to focus on two internationally established Swedishcompanies, Atlas Copco and Skanska, where we contactedpeople that have experience from project management. We gotin contact with the people at Skanska through our tutor at theuniversity while the people at Atlas Copco were found with thehelp of the tutor the company provided us with when writingour bachelor thesis earlier this year. Having this help made theprocess of finding the right people to interview much easierwhich was of great importance since time has been somethingof a scarcity. We conducted five interviews in total, two withpeople from Atlas Copco and three with people from Skanska.We wanted, initially, to get in contact with more projectmanagers but the people we contacted were in very criticalphases in their actual projects and did not have the time to meetwith us before the deadline of this report. Further, we noticedafter five interviews that the answers all pointed at the samedirection so we do not believe that conducting more interviewswould have altered our conclusions considerably in this subject.

The interviews were all conducted in person at theinterviewees’ offices and in addition to taking notes during theinterviews we also recorded them on tape. The interviews werethen typed down and sent to each interviewee so they couldhave the possibility to add comments or change possiblemistakes in our interpretations. This was done to assure that wehad understood the answers and comments the way they weremeant and in that way be able to assure accuracy andcredibility in our analysis to a higher extent.


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Obtaining reliability in interpreting research is quite difficultsince the investigation, in some way, almost always isdependent on the researcher and/or the units investigated.22

Reliability implies that the instruments used to perform thestudy shall give confident and stable results that would be thesame if the study was to be repeated by other researchers. Sincewe have chosen to use interviews to collect empirical data wemust be aware of that reliability is difficult to obtain to a fullextent. If some other researchers were to conduct the samestudy using the same method as we have, their conclusionsmight very well be different from ours. It is possible that thesituation for the interviewees, when we met them, affected theiranswers that might have been different if the interviews hadbeen conducted on another occasion. Further, if other questionshad been asked maybe our conclusions would have beenslightly different.

One of the questions we have been pondering on is whether ourresults are generally applicable. Is it so that we may find thesame tendencies in both companies regarding the adjustment ofleadership styles in multicultural project groups? If, afterhaving conducted our investigation, we can see suchtendencies, is it then possible to draw any general conclusionsfrom this? We think so. Even if we have seen similar (or eventhe same) tendencies, we need to be cautious in generalisingsince our research only embraces two companies. To be able todraw more general conclusions, further research is needed.However, since the tendencies are quite strong (according toour interpretations) we believe that further research wouldshow similar results and we consider our investigation as apointer in this subject.

Even though we have done our utmost to look at allinformation obtained as objective as possible we have had tointerpret the interviews we have had while drawing our ownconclusions. This will probably result in that somewhatsubjective thoughts will appear in our analysis, but that is also afeature that is habitual in the hermeneutic approach.

22 Eriksson & Widersheim-Paul, 1999


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2.4 Some thoughts about our procedure

We have a descriptive approach to our problem, which resultsin some of our research questions, presented in the first chapter,being answered by the empirical data collected. However, wewill not settle with this. The comments and answers wepresented as our empirical data will be used to reach a deeperunderstanding of the subject when applying the empirical dataon theories in the analysis.

Since this subject could have been investigated from severaldifferent angles it could be seen as a limitation that we onlyhave interviewed project managers. The results we haveobtained might have been different if we would have includedproject members in the study. This, however is a consciousdecision we have made since our timeframe did not allow us tocover all angles.

Further, we have limited our investigation to interviews onlyand we have not observed the reality, meaning that we havenot followed a project group ourselves to observe the projectmanager “in action”, how he/she treats the project workers. Wehave had to rely on the information provided by the projectmanagers on how he/she works and thereby taking the riskthat the information does not give us a truthful picture. This isone factor that could lead to erroneously drawn conclusions.

In short we think of ourselves as having a hermeneutic viewon science where pre-understanding and interpretations arefundamental. Our study has its starting point in theempirical data collected, hence we find ourselves having aninductive approach. Our study has several features of a casestudy since it is focusing on one particular occurrence andit is based mainly on an inductive discussion. To collectinformation we have performed interviews, which makesthis study a purely qualitative one. The interviews wereconducted with project leaders at Atlas Copco and Skanska.They took place in person and after each interview we


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summarised it and sent it to the respondent for commentsand approval. This was made to increase the accuracy andcredibility of our study. We have seen tendencies that allpoint at the same direction, but we want to be careful togeneralise since our study is quite limited.


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3 What is so different with aproject?

The theoretical frame of this report will be presented in threeseparate chapters. In this first chapter we will discussdifferent authors’ views on what a project is, why it shouldbe adopted and in which situations it is suitable. Further wewill discuss how an effective project group could becomposed and also discuss homogeneity versusheterogeneity in a project groups.

3.1 What is a project?

Before we can begin to discuss why a project needs to be treateddifferently from ordinary tasks and activities within anorganisation, we need to define what a project really is, andwhich characteristics are required for an activity to be called aproject.

The word project can be traced back to the Latin verb“proicere” which can be divided into two parts: pro, whichmeans forward, and jacere, that signifies throw. Putting thesetwo parts together project could be said to signify somethingthat gets thrown forward.23 According to Harrison, a projectcould be defined as:

“A non-routine, non-repetitive, one-off undertaking, normally withdiscrete time, financial and technical performance goals”. 24

He continues by stating four requisites that a project shouldhave:

� A specific objective to be completed within certainspecifications.

23 Mats Engwall, 199824 Harrison F.L, 1992


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� Defined start and end dates.

� Funding limits

� A consumption of resources like money, people’s time,equipment etc. 25

Ögård & Gallstad and Wisén & Lindblom define a project in thesame way but add the requisite that it must be executed usingspecial work forms. The main difference between projects andother forms of temporary workgroups is that when workingwith a project one creates a separate organisation to solve thetask.26 The project is, in other words, separated from the regularactivities but non-the less strongly dependent on it.27 Theresponsibility is given to a temporary responsible person,which is not the case in other workgroups.28

The extreme form of a project is a totally independent groupwhere there is no connection to the main organisation, theproject is “lifted out” from the organisation. In this project formthe project manager takes full responsibility for managing theproject towards its goals. He/she has also total responsibilityfor the budget and for the personnel. In other words the projectin this extreme version may get rather similar to a normal lineorganisation.29

This project form, however, is rather unusual. The normalrelation is that the project manager shares resources with theline in a so-called matrix organisation. The project workers andeven the project manager may share their time between one orseveral projects and their normal areas within the line.30 Thematrix has a structure that has several dimensions. This givesthe structure strengths such as flexibility in the usage of

25 Harrison F.L, 199226 Ögård & Gallstad, 199927 Wisén & Lindblom, 199828 Ögård & Gallstad, 199929 Nytell, 1996

30 Ibid


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resources and competence. The most characteristic for a matrixstructure is that the project workers have two managers – theproject manager and the line manager. This may in somesituations create conflicts and stress since the two managers canhave different interests.31

3.2 Why use the project form?

Organisations are often not really adapted to tasks that demandresources from various functions of the organisation. Sometasks may also need much flexibility and controlling that theorganisation cannot offer. The project is by its nature engagingcolleagues across the normal units of the organisation andthereby the project needs strong co-ordination, resourceplanning and co-operation.32

Using the project work form may result in a certain matterbeing solved faster and smoother than it would have been in anormal line organisation. By using this work form, the questionmay be “lifted out” and get more attention with protectedresources. If the organisation wants to achieve better co-ordination and co-operation the project work form canlegitimate such a co-operation and get the employees to makenew contacts and think more freely. A certain matter can affectvarious units within an organisation that needs to contributewith their knowledge in different ways. To create a projectgroup where different persons have different roles and taskscould be a smooth way to proceed.33 Further, project workcreates learning organisations where the members learn fromeach other, everybody’s opinions are of equal importance andthe learning is seen as a natural part of the job process.34

When are the motives for creating a project group strongest?Some characteristics for these situations are that the task:

31 Wisén & Lindblom, 199832 Ögård &Gallstad, 199933 Wisén & Lindblom, 199834 Lindström-Myrgård, 1996


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� Is complex and involves interdependence of severaldepartments.35

� Is completely new and there is uncertainty concerning how itshould be handled.

� Concerns several organisations or units and puts greatdemands on co-ordination.

� Is costly and demands certain follow-up.

� Must be completed within a fixed time frame.

� Is possible to limit and specify.36

3.3 The project group

As in the regular organisation it is difficult to generalise when itcomes to the project organisation’s design. The structure mustfit the project’s nature and goal.37 The project group is mostoften composed by co-workers from different functions of theorganisation. They normally have different competencies andskills, and are often located in different cities and in differentcountries.38 A well-composed project team should contain theskills and experience necessary to solve the task in a satisfyingway.

Lindström-Myrgård among many other authors has discussedthe size of the optimal group and several of these refer to grouppsychology that asserts that three to seven people in a groupoften functions best. 39

35 Avots, 199736 Wisén & Lindblom, 199837 Ibid38 Lind & Skärvad, 199839 Lindström-Myrgård K., 1996


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3.3.1 Balanced groups40

When working in a group people tend to take on a role wherethey act and contribute to the group’s work in a specificmanner. Some people are task oriented and keep the group onthe right track toward reaching their goal and objective. Othersare relation-oriented and keep the group united by encouragingthe colleagues, handling conflicts, giving feedback on theprocess etc. The effectiveness of the group presumes that thegroup has the right balance of roles.

There are different ways to organise and put together a group.Lind & Skärvad mention three main types, and are careful toemphasise that every task can find one type that fits best. Theorganisation of the group must therefore be made with thetasks specific characteristics in mind. We will now give threeexamples of groups that are balanced and present what kind ofpersonalities and tasks that are typical for each group.

Role differentiated groups

In this kind of group the team roles are specialised, the work isdone sequential and the co-ordination is done through directcontrol or standardisation. Typical for this kind of group are thesequential relations where the tasks are following each other intime, clearly specified rules, and differentiated roles. Themanager does not have very much possibility to affect thesingle worker’s behaviour when the job has started.

The role-differentiated group is appropriate when the task iseasy to specify in advance. The strength of this team is thatevery individual get to focus on his/her task and role and alsoget evaluated on the basis of his/her own performance. Theweakness of this kind of group is that when everything isstrongly defined in advanced there is not much room forflexibility.

40 Lind & Skärvad, 1998


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Role integrating groups

The base for the role-integrating group is that the roles arespecialised but that the “actors”, during the procedure of theproject, have to co-operate with each other. The work relationsare parallel and the work of one group member must thereforebe co-ordinated with the other members’ contributions. Thesecharacteristics lead to high demands on communication and tosome extent personal chemistry between the group members.The managers role, except for electing the members, is to adaptthe group to new situations.

This type of group is suited for more dynamic or complex taskswhere it is necessary to be able to move collectively, flexiblyand quickly. It is also dependent on a skilful manager and cleargoals.

Role completing groups

In a role completing team the roles are specialised but the“actors”, except for being integrated with the other groupmembers, have to be prepared to complement the others andadapt to the other group members’ strengths and weaknessesand to support and complement these. The work is doneparallel and the function may, in certain cases, mean apreparedness to “take over” other people’s tasks. This is whythere are even stronger demands on mutual adaptation andmore fluent relations between the group members and we arenow speaking of pure team performance.

This type of group is most suitable for tasks that arecomplicated and that changes rapidly, where there aredemands on improvisation and that the members can adaptand complement each other.


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3.3.2 Just a plain apple pie or a tropical mixed one?

“Mix well, not only men and women but also race, religion, and culturalbackground. Strew gravel in the machinery.”41

In literature treating project groups and project managementthere is a consensus that a mixture of different people normallygives a certain touch to the group. Many authors recommend amixture of different age groups, gender, professionalbackground, personality etc. to be able to create a project groupthat is creative and effective.42 Heterogeneity is, in other words,something that is seen as a positive feature of a project group.

Since this report only will treat the dimension of nationalculture we have chosen to focus on the different opinions whenit comes to homogeneity/heterogeneity of nationalities inprojects.

Cultural diversity of a group has both positive and negativeimpacts on the group’s performance, efficiency andproductivity. Enshassi brings up and compares several authors’views on this subject in his book on multicultural management.According to Trinandis, the best way to maximise a group’sefficiency is to ensure that the group members arehomogeneous in ability level, to make communication easier,and heterogeneous in attitudes. This would give a greatervariety of solutions and alternatives to problems. Woodcock, onthe other hand, argues that the main factor for the success of theJapanese automobile industry was the cultural homogeneity.He continues by saying that homogeneity fosters greatersolidarity and improves morale, which increases productivityand quality of the product. These arguments are supported byCartwright, and Anderson who stated that similarities betweenteam members reinforces the cohesion of the team, which inturn will result in higher productivity.43

41 Dodds, “Personal, människor och arbete”,nr 6/7, 1994, p.1142 Nytell, 1996 & Lindström-Myrgård,199643 Enshassi, 1994


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Steiner found that, despite the greater complexity of the workprocess, a more diverse group augments productivity of agroup. Further culturally diverse groups tend to perform eitherthe best or the poorest. This phenomenon was explained byAdler who claimed that the team’s performance was a result ofhow they manage their differences. A well-managed culturallydiverse team could become very productive.44

The most common definition of a project is that it needs tohave a specific objective, defined start and end dates andlimited funding. It is separated from the regular activities inan organisation but is still dependant on it. The project formis used when the task needs much flexibility, attention andcontrolling and if there is a need to attract people fromdifferent departments. The importance of having a balancedproject group has also been discussed describing threedifferent types of groups where the roles of the members andtheir relations to one another are different. Further, we havepresented the different opinions that exist on the subject ofculturally mixed project groups and the impact the mix hason the group’s performance, efficiency and productivity.

44 Enshassi, 1994


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4 Management

The second chapter of our frame of reference will treatmanagement. We will present classical managementtheories and theories on project management that will be ofuse when continuing our investigation.

In literature that treats this subject, the terms leadership andmanagement are sometimes used interchangeably while thereare many authors that choose to make a distinction between thetwo terms. Yukl for example wrote that the difference betweenleadership and management is that one can be a leader withoutbeing a manager and one can be a manager without leading.45

We have chosen not to make a distinction between a leader anda manager in this thesis since the people we have interviewedare both leaders and managers.

4.1 Project management

The traditional forms of organisation and managementtechniques do not handle project management effectively andas a result of this project management has been developed as aseparate branch of management. There is a need for specialisedforms of organisation, communication, financial management,control and managing the human resources because of thespecial characteristics of projects and the problem caused bythem.46

Since a project goes through several stages from research &development to design and production there is no individualdepartmental manager that can assume the leadingmanagement role throughout the whole project. The traditionalorganisation structure does therefore not handle projectseffectively. It tends not to meet time targets and it has

45 Yukl, 199846 Harrison, 1992


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difficulties to achieve effective communication and co-ordination between the different departments that are involvedin the project. Further it cannot handle dynamic and complexrelations that change constantly.47 Project management is aboutdirecting an organisation that is responsible for an undertakingthat is limited in scope and time48. These undertakings aregenerally recognised as being specialised activities designed toachieve a predetermined objective or goal49.

The project group’s organisation structure is quite different.The conventional organisation divides the people into groupsof similar skills, interests or occupational specialisation, this ishowever not applicable for the project organisation. Projectsare, as mentioned earlier, temporary undertakings that usuallyinvolve several departments of a company, and most of thedepartments are normally working on more than one project atthe time and each of these are at different stages in the projectlife cycle. This displays that projects are complex with respect tointerdependencies and interaction between groups anddepartments and sometimes even other companies.50 Henceproject management is about co-ordinating this complexity tomake the project run smoothly.

4.2 The project manager – a man in between

A project manager is in general managing a higher proportionof professionals or specialists. Therefore he/she needs to have adifferent attitude when it comes to control, co-ordination,communication and setting the performance standards. Whenmanaging a group of professionals the usual superior-subordinate relationship must be modified, for example shouldthe methods of work performance be established by theprofessional him-/herself. This also means that the professional

47 Harrison, 199248 Knoepfel H., 199449 Adams J.R., 199450 Gaddis P, 199748 Ibid


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must be accountable for productivity and not be excused fromresponsibility of having to produce according to therequirements of his/her profession.51

Most essential in the project management concept is a cleardelineation of authority and responsibility. The manager isresponsible for delivering the end product in accordance withperformance requirements, within budget limitations andwithin the time schedule. In general the project manager willdelegate by tasks so that the subordinates in the group willhave the same three responsibilities for subprojects.52

Lawrence & Lorsh introduce another concept in this area, theterm “integration” which is achieving unity of efforts amongthe major functional specialists in an organisation. Theintegrator’s role is to handle the non routine problems thatoccur among the traditional functions when each of them striveto do its own job. According to these authors this kind ofperson has been identified earlier as product manager, programco-ordinator, project manager etc. and the core function of thesepositions has been the same as the one of the integrator.53

In general the project manager can be regarded as the man inbetween. He/she must be comfortable in the front office talkingabout budgets and corporate policies and at the same time feelat ease talking about the specific task of the project. However itis important to understand that he/she is not a supernaturalperson, the project manager cannot be expected to be equallyknowledgeable in both areas. Being a little bit of both he/she isdifferent from both and it is this quality that makes this kind ofperson so valuable.54

How should a project manager be? What kind of person isneeded to carry through a project? According to Gaddis it isnecessary for the project manager to see all things as thoughhis/her particular project is the centre of the corporate

52 Gaddis P, 199753 Lawrence & Lorsch, 199754 Gaddis P, 1997


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universe. This is needed to generate the necessary drive fromthe manager to get the project to succeed. Further,communication deserves much attention. A project managermust be able to communicate adequately with the groupmembers and to develop a communicative attitude among thewhole project group.55 Avots adds the importance of being ableto make important decisions on basis of few data that have beenanalysed in a haste.56

Lawrence & Lorsh classifies the characteristics needed to be aneffective project manager/integrator into three needs:

� Affiliation need – there should be a strive for payingattention to others and to their feelings, trying to establishfriendly relationships in meetings and offering opportunitiesfor interaction.

� Achievement need – to be effective the project managershould have an achievement need that is near the norm ofmanagers in general. If higher, it might reduce the will tocollaborate with regards to a perceived competition that willdiminish the effectiveness in the organisation as a whole.

� Power need – attaining enough power to influence others bypersuasive arguments or by taking leadership roles in groupactivities.

The behavioural styles of different integrators have beeninvestigated, revealing that effective integrators show atendency to take initiative, they are aggressive, confident andpersuasive. Further they seek status to a greater extent than theless effective integrators, they are ambitious, active and, asGaddis also mentioned, effective in communication. Aneffective integrator have a high social competence, and prefermore flexible ways of acting.57

55 Gaddis P, 199756 Avots, 199757 Lawrence & Lorsch, 1997


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4.3 Project- vs. Classical Management

Anthony & Govindarajan point at some characteristics thatmake the management of projects different from managementof an ongoing organisation’s activities.

� A project usually has one single objective, e.g. to develop anew product or alike while in an ongoing organisation thereare normally several different objectives. A line managerwill, except for supervising day-to-day work, make decisionsthat will affect future operations and he/she will beevaluated in terms of all the results he/she achieves. Theproject manager on the other hand will also make decisionsthat affect the future, but the time horizon ends with theproject and he /she will be judged on basis the end productof the project.

� Project control focus is always on the project itself whoseobjective is to produce a desired product within a specifiedtime horizon and at an optimum cost. The ongoingorganisation focuses on the activities of a specific period oftime and on all products worked on in that period.

� The standards on the performance seem to be less reliable fora project than for the main organisation. Standards forrepetitive project activities can be developed from pastexperience of e.g. estimating time and costs. But manyprojects are quite different from prior projects so thathistorical information is not of much help.

� The plans for a project tend to change frequently,unpredictable environmental changes or unexpected factsthat occur during a consulting engagement may lead tochanges in the project plans. This indicates a need for a moreflexible control system than is necessary in the normalorganisation.


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� Projects seem to be more strongly influenced by the externalenvironment than the ordinary line functions are.58

The greatest differences between theories on projectmanagement and classical management can be found in theorganising, structure and financial management parts.However we mean to study the managerial/leadership style ofproject managers in multicultural projects. Therefore theoriesconcerning how to organise and finance projects are of littleinterest to us. Since our study will treat the managers’behaviour we will, in addition to project management theories,support our discussion on some classical management theoriesthat we find can be applicable on the subject. We will nowpresent some of these theories starting with managementbehaviours. These theories are applicable both on classicalorganisations as well as on project organisations.

4.4 Management behaviours

We have chosen to present two of the most cited overallbehaviours of a leader. It is common that a manager has bothbehaviours in his/her management style but one can oftendetect one of these behaviours to be the more dominant one.

Task-oriented behaviour A manager that is mainly task-oriented isa manager that primarily is concerned with accomplishing thetask that the workgroup has. This kind of manager is more in toplanning, organising and monitoring operations as well asclarifying roles.59

Relations-oriented behaviour A manager that is mainly relations-oriented is primarily concerned with improving relationshipsand helping people, increasing co-operation and teamwork aswell as job satisfaction. This kind of manager is more

58 Anthony & Govindarajan, 199859 Yukl, 199859 Yukl, 1998


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supporting, developing and recognising and is set to manageconflicts. 60

4.4.1 Managerial duties and responsibilities

As we mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, authorshave chosen to define a leader in terms of behaviour amongother things. Yukl has treated five characteristics that amanager may apply to be able to manage his/her workforce toperform a task. Planning is one of these characteristics. Amanager who is good at planning identifies necessary actionsteps, estimates the time needed to carry out each step and setsdeadlines and costs to go through these steps and to get his/herwork force to reach their goal. When a leader is said to beproblem solving he/she identifies work-related problems andtakes the responsibility to deal with them. He/she alsoidentifies connections among problems and experiments withpossible solutions. Clarifying roles and objectives is anotherbehaviour that Yukl has described. The leader is defining jobresponsibilities, setting performance goals, assigning tasks,providing instructions of how to do a task. A leader can also beinforming and is then skilful at communicating task-relevantinformation, improving direct access by others to relevantinformation as well as keeping people informed about decisionand changes. Monitoring operations is a behaviour that dealswith identifying and measuring key indicators of unitperformance, monitoring key process variables as well asoutcomes, measuring progress against plans and budgets,observing operations directly and encouraging reporting ofproblems and mistakes. Each type of these managerialbehaviours can be of great importance and help if the manageris skilful enough to adapt the behaviours in a proper way.61

Yukl goes on introducing five other characteristics that amanager can have but now focusing on behaviours to managethe relations with the individuals in his/her project group. It is

61 Yukl, 1998


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of course of great importance to get respect from one’ssubordinates as well as to build relationships and create amotivated and co-operative workforce. One specific trait that aleader may have to improve his/her relations with thesubordinates is to be supportive. This simply means that theleader shows considerations, acceptance and concern for thesubordinates. Several types of behaviours are included in thedescription of being developing; coaching, mentoring and careercounselling. When a leader is recognising he/she gives praiseand showing appreciation to show respect for the individuals inthe project group. Rewarding is another way for a leader to bewhich means that he/she is giving tangible benefits to someonefor effective performance and significant achievements.Managing conflict is another important behaviour that a leaderneeds to be able to build and maintain co-operative workingrelationships within the manager’s unit. 62

4.4.2 Power and Influence63

Two terms that often are used when discussing managementare influence and power where the former is defined as theeffect that one person has on another and the influence may beon that person’s attitudes, perceptions and behaviour. Power isdefined as the capacity to influence a person. When it comes toinfluence, there are three concepts that Yukl discusses:

� Commitment A person agrees with a decision or requestfrom someone else and makes a great effort to carry out therequest.

� Compliance A person is willing to do what the agent asksbut feels indifferent rather than enthusiastic about the task.

� Resistance A person is against the proposal or request and isnot willing to carry out the request.

62 Yukl, 199863 Yukl, 1998


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When it comes to power there are three different types ofinfluence processes that Yukl describes:

� Instrumental Compliance A person carries out a request toobtain a reward or to avoid a punishment.

� Internalisation A person is committed to support and toimplement proposals because it fits the values and beliefs ofthat person.

� Identification A person imitates the agent’s behaviouror/and adopts the same attitude because there is a need foracceptance.

4.4.3 Control64

Miles & Snow has defined three different categories ofmanagement control. Each category describes a possible way tomotivate the personnel and get them to perform as wanted.The first they mention is Action Control which focuses onensuring that the employees perform, or do not perform,certain actions that are seen as beneficial, or harmful, to theorganisation. Action control can be executed in four differentways, through behavioural constraints, pre-action reviews,action accountability and redundancy. When talking aboutbehavioural constraints the authors are talking about making itimpossible for people to do things that should no be done. Thiscan be done through physical constraints which could belocking desks, computer password etc. Administrativeconstraints, such as restricting decision-making authority, areanother kind of controlling the employees’ behaviour. Pre-action reviews is a kind of action control where the action plansof the employees are scrutinised before they can be executed.The reviewers can approve or disapprove the proposed actionor ask for modification of the plans. Action accountabilityinvolves holding the employees accountable for the actions they

64 Merchant, 1998


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take. With redundancy Miles & Snow mean assigning morepeople to a task than necessary to increase that a task will beaccomplished.

Action control requires that acceptable and unacceptablebehaviours are defined, that the employees know of these andthat good actions are rewarded while actions that diverge fromthe acceptable behaviours are punished.

The second control category is Results Controls. Here focus isput on the results achieved and not so much on how they areachieved. The individuals get rewarded for generating goodresults and punished for poor results. As mentioned the actionof the employees are not constrained, they are allowed to takeany action that they believe will produce the desired result best.Hence, results controls are consistent with a decentralisedorganisation. This kind of control requires that the dimension ofdesired results are well developed, well known within theorganisation and have accurate performance measures on thesedimensions. If they are not, the employee may work to improvean area or measure that is unimportant or ill-defined andtherefore not congruent with the objective of the organisation.

The third category is divided into two parts; Personnel andCultural Controls and is a part of almost every managementcontrol system where it functions as a complement to theaction- and results control. The personnel Controls is built uponthe employees’ natural tendencies to control themselves. It isbased on trust to the work force and the methods ofimplementing personnel control are through selection ofemployees, training and job design and provision of necessaryresources. Finding the right people to do a particular job andgiving them a good work environment and necessary resourceswill increase the probability that the job will be performedproperly. Training can give useful information about whatexpected results or actions and also have positive effects onmotivation since people in general are often more interested inperforming well in jobs they understand better.


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Cultural Controls are designed to incite mutual-monitoring,where the social pressure from groups on individuals withinthe groups who deviate from the groups’ norms and values.This kind of control is most effective when members of a grouphave strong emotional ties to one another, e.g. in collectivistcountries (see 5.1.1 for a description of the collectivisticconcept). Cultural controls can be shaped in different ways.Codes of conduct, which is a written document that givesgeneral statements of corporate values etc., is used by mostlarger organisations and designed to help the employeesunderstand what behaviours are expected although specificrules are absent. Group based rewards is another way to makethe employees monitoring each other, the reward one persongets is dependent on how the whole group performs. Physicalarrangements, such as office plans and interior decor, and socialarrangements, such as dress codes and vocabulary, does alsoshape the organisational culture.

4.5 The Swedish way of managing

One of our research questions treats the typical Swedishmanagement style. We will, in the chapter where we presentour empirical findings, show what the interviewees said aboutthis question. In this part however, we will turn to studies thathave been conducted to investigate whether there exists aleadership style that is typical for Swedes.

Are there any characteristics of the Swedish management stylethat are different from other nationalities? Gustavsson andMelin answer this question affirmatively but with somehesitation. They emphasise that a leadership style is influencedby so many different factors where the nationality is only one ofthem. Their studies have, however, shown tendencies to that aSwedish leadership style does exist.65 We will briefly presentsome of their findings that we believe describes the Swedishleadership style well.

65 Gustavsson & Melin, 1996


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Something that is often mentioned when discussing theSwedish way of managing is the desire to reach consensus indecision making. The organisational structure in Sweden andthe well-known democracy are of course determinants of aclimate where the consensus reaching has its natural place.Intimately linked to the decentralised structure is theinformality that often is shown among Swedish managers thattend to want to keep a “low profile”. They leave much room forthe lower level management to take their own initiatives.Further, Swedish managers seem to fear arguments and areunwilling to meet in open conflicts.66

4.6 Management in multicultural projects

Above we have presented theories on project management aswell as on classical management. We will now continue bypresenting management in multicultural project groups wherewe discuss theories, difficulties, differences and what such amanager needs to be aware of. Studies of what managers doeach day at work show that 75% of their time is spent ontalking, writing and listening, hence communicating.67 It isobvious that a manager needs great communication skills inhis/her work and as we will see, communication often runsmore smoothly when the people one is communicating with arefrom the one’s own culture. Bearing this in mind, a manager ofa multicultural project group does not only needcommunication skills but also needs to be aware of the culturaldifferences and how they affect the communication.

To be able to have a meaningful discussion on the subject wefeel that we first need to discuss and present theories oncommunication, focusing on cross culture communication aswell as culture, focusing on national culture and how it affectscommunication and management. We have chosen to present it

66 Gustavsson & Melin, 199667 Harris & Moran, 1996


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this way because, as we will see in the next chapter,management in multicultural project groups is intimatelyintertwined with the subjects culture and communication andcannot be treated separately.

In this chapter we have presented theories both on project- andclassical management. The differences lie in the organising,structuring and financial supervision because the project group’sstructure is different and demands higher flexibility anddynamics. To be effective, a project manager should have anaffiliation need – being sensitive to others, an achievement need –being effective and a power need – being able to influence andinspire others. However, classical management theories onbehaviours are applicable on both project and classicalmanagement. For example, being task or behaviour oriented ishighly relevant in both projects and in line organisations. Wehave also presented managerial characteristics that a leader canhave when managing task performance, e.g. planning andinforming, and relations at work e.g. supportive and rewarding.Miles’ and Snow’s three control categories Action Control,Results Control and Culture & Personnel Control describedifferent possibilities for a manager to control his/her workforce.Consensus-reaching, informal and wanting to keep a low profileare said to be characteristics typical of Swedish managementstyle.


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5 Culture

This third and last part of our frame of reference will treatthe culture issue. What is culture? Why is it important tobe aware of cultural differences when leading a project?Further we will present how a few recognised theoristscategorise the different dimensions of culture.Communication will also be treated since our cultureinfluences our manner of communication.

Culture is an issue with many different dimensions and we willnot try to treat them all. Both Trompenaars and Hofstedediscuss the different levels of culture where the first authormentioned presents national, corporate and professionallevels,68 while the latter talks about gender, generation, socialclass, regional as well as national and organisational levels69.The level that is important to us in this thesis is the nationalculture. Since we are focusing on multicultural project groups,to see what kind of problems, if any, that arise from the fact thatpeople are from different national cultures, we will therefore, asmentioned in the first chapter, not include theories on corporateculture in the frame of reference. We will treat the nationalculture, especially in regards to communication, and discusswhy it is important to be aware of it when working in amulticultural project group.

The word culture comes from the Latin word “cultura” wherecult means worship and -ura means the result of. Having theseinterpretations in mind Joynt and Warner have chosen to defineculture as “the result of human action”. Further they have listedsome characteristics of a culture that tie people together:communication and language, dress and appearance, time andtime consciousness, values and norms, work habits andpractises, relationships and beliefs and attitudes to name afew.70 Gudykunst has defined culture as historically transmittedsystems of symbols and meanings that are identifiable through

68 Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 199769 Hofstede, 199170 Joynt & Warner, 1996


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norms and beliefs shared by a people.71 Another definition bySimon, Vàzquez and Harris is that culture is a collection ofmindsets, standards or models that tell us who we are and howwe should behave. They go on saying that the best key tounderstand culture is to look inside of ourselves and not lookfor the answer around us. The essence of our own nationalculture is how we, as members of a group, talk to and amongourselves about what is right and wrong, good and bad, usefuland useless, beautiful and ugly, true and false.72 Two of themost well-known authors in this subject, Trompenaars andHofstede, have chosen to define it simply by saying that cultureis the way in which a group of people solves problems andreconciles dilemma.73

Why is it so important to be aware of the cultural differenceswhen working in a multicultural group? Everyone has differentnotions of how to define values, habits and behaviour. The wayChinese regard duty is not the way Americans regard it.Romantic love is seen differently in France and Finland. TheEnglish notion of revenge bears little resemblance to theSicilian.74 Not acknowledging the culture and how itdifferentiates people’s way of looking at things causesbreakdowns. Engineers from Japan, China, America and Francemay do well dealing with a technical problem but how they runa meeting and take turns speaking may cause a breakdown.75

Cultural differences manifest themselves in several ways.Above we presented culture in terms of levels. But it can also bedivided into layers. When we encounter a new culture we firstnotice the differences in the people’s clothes, language, food,buildings, monuments and art. This is the explicit culture andalso called the outer layer by Trompenaars. Further there is amiddle layer where, when penetrating a culture, one becomesaware of the formal and informal laws where the latter ones arecreated by the people’s shared beliefs and meanings. The last

71 Kim & Gudykunst, 198872 Simon, Vàzquez, Harris, 199373 Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 199774 Lewis, 199675 Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997


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level is also the most difficult one to discover and confront; thecore. It is called the core because it constitutes the most basicassumptions of human existence that the people have. Ifconfronted with questions concerning these basic assumptionsthey might find it very difficult to answer and explain. (Why isequality so important in Sweden for example?).76

Simon, Vàzquez and Harris treat cultural paradoxes where theysay that we need culture to interpret our world because we arenot able to stop, think and consciously analyse everything thathappens to us each day and by doing so we are likely to misschanges and new development. We depend on culture tounderstand and operate in our world, yet culture by its verynature, filters our perceptions and affect our judgement so thatwe see and function with a narrow range of possibilities. One ofthe most important issues is that culture is ethnocentric bynature and presents itself as a set of absolute beliefs where wefind it difficult to discuss issues as being relative. 77

That a manager is cultural sensitive, as Harris and Moran put it,implies that he/she understands the cultural influences onpeople’s behaviour78. A manager that is capable of operatingeffectively in a global environment, being respectful of culturaldiversity, open and flexible in approaching others, able to copewith situations and people that is different from his/herbackground and willing to re-examine and change personalattitudes and perceptions, is a “global leader” according toHarris and Moran.79 Simon, Vázquez and Harris have made asimilar definition of a leader in a multicultural environment buthave chosen to name it the “transcultural leader”.80

Simon, Vázquez and Harris have listed some of the reasons towhy problems and disruption of cultural origin occur in groupsthat are multicultural. They have divided them into internallyand externally caused problems that we have presented below:

76 Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 199777 Simon, Vàzquez, Harris,199378 Harris & Moran,199679 Ibid80 Simon, Vàzquez, Harris,1993


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Internally

� Our own historical and cultural background� Heightened stress level urge us to enforce our own cultural

standards� Ignorance leading to fear� Our own ethnocentricity and absolutism

Externally

� Physical characteristics of newcomers to the workforce� Behavioural traits� Increased numbers of workers from a different culture� “Eccentric” beliefs based on limited information about others

5.1 Cultural dimensions

Several authors have developed dimensions to be able tounderstand how cultures differ. Hofstede’s four culturedimensions are some of the most well-known dimensions.Trompenaars has developed five cultural dimensions and hasbeen influenced from Hofstede. We have chosen to present athird author that is not as well known as the two authorsalready mentioned but we believe that his two dimensions areof interest and need some attention.

5.1.1 Hofstede’s cultural dimensions

As we have mentioned, Hofstede that is one of the most well-known authors in this subject, has derived his four culturaldimensions of cultural variability from empirical studies of amultinational corporation. We will briefly present the fourdimensions since they are often used in similar discussions.Gudykunst believes that the dimension of individualism-collectivism is the most important one to understand thesimilarities and differences in communication across cultures.


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Since his definition of this dimension is developed fromHofstede’s definition of the same, the two do not differ muchand we have therefore decided to present both Gudykunst’sand Hofstede’s definition under the same heading.

Individualism-Collectivism

This dimension is the major dimension of cultural variabilityused to explain cross-cultural differences and similarities incommunication across cultures. It is useful in understandingthe role that the individuals play in society.81 In individualisticcultures, emphasis is put on individuals’ goals while groupgoals are more at focus in collectivistic cultures. Individualisticcultures promote self-realisation for their members and they aresupposed to look after themselves and their immediate familywhile the individual is required to fit into the group and thegroup will take care of them in exchange for their loyalty incollectivistic cultures.82 Another important issue within thisdimension is the matter of ingroups. Ingroups are “groups ofpeople about whose welfare one is concerned, with whom oneis willing to co-operate without demanding equitable returns,and separation from whom leads to discomfort or even pain”83.In individualistic societies, there are many ingroups that mayinfluence people’s behaviour (social clubs, family, religion,profession etc). Since there are so many ingroups they tend tohave relatively little influence over their members’ behaviours.However, in collectivistic societies the situation is quite theopposite; there are few ingroups (family, work group anduniversity to name some of the major groups) and they exertquite strong influence over their members’ behaviour in socialsituations. Countries high in collectivism are Japan, SaudiArabia etc while countries that tend to be more individualisticare Britain and France.84

81 Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, Nishida, 199682 Gudykunst, 199183 Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, Nishida, 199684 Ibid


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Uncertainty Avoidance

This dimensions deals with the degree to which members of aculture try to avoid uncertainty. Members of cultures high inuncertainty avoidance have a lower tolerance for uncertaintyand ambiguity, which expresses itself in higher levels of anxietyand a greater need for formal rules and less tolerance for peopleor groups with different ideas and behaviour. Hofstede hassummarised his view of people in such cultures as “what isdifferent, is dangerous”. When comparing with members ofcultures low in uncertainty avoidance, one can see that thosepeople have lower stress levels and they accept deviance andtaking more risks. Hofstede’s summary of these kind of peopleis “what is different, is curious”. This dimension is useful inunderstanding how foreigners are treated in particular when itcomes to discussions and interaction. Countries with tendenciestowards high uncertainty avoidance are Egypt, Argentina,France, Japan and Spain. Countries that tend to be low onuncertainty avoidance are Canada, England, Sweden, India andthe United States.85

Power Distance

This dimension can be interpreted as the extent to which theless powerful members of institutions and organisations acceptthat power is distributed unequally. Individuals from highpower distance cultures accept power as a part of the societyand superiors consider their subordinates to be different fromthemselves and vice versa. Members of low power distancecultures feel that there is limited dependence of subordinateson managers and there is a interdependence between themanager and subordinates. Power should only be used when itis legitimate and expert or legitimate power is preferred. Thisdimension is useful in understanding strangers’ behaviour inrole relationships in particular when different degrees of powerand authority is involved. Countries where high powerdistance culture is predominant are Egypt, Guatemala, India,Saudi Arabia etc whereas countries that would score low on

85 Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, Nishida, 1996


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power distance are Austria, Canada, Sweden, Israel, UnitedStates etc.86

Masculinity-Femininity

Members of societies high in masculinity involves a high valueplaced on things and power. They emphasise performance,ambition and independence. Further, individuals in thesesocieties have stronger motivation for achievement, view workas more central in their lives, have higher job stress and havegreater value differences between men and women in the sameposition. They also view recognition, advancement or challengeas more important to their job satisfaction. Members of societieshigh in femininity place emphasis on people and quality of life.They value fluid sex roles, service and interdependence andhave the opposite view on their jobs. These members tend tohave more contact with members of the opposite sex whengrowing up. This dimension is useful in understanding culturaldifferences and similarities in opposite- and same-sexrelationships. To achieve effective communication betweenthose two cultures it is important that they understand eachothers’ orientation towards sex roles. Countries that tend to behigh in masculinity are Italy, Japan, Mexico and Switzerlandwhile countries with feminine predomination are Chile, theScandinavian countries and the Netherlands.87

5.1.2 Gudykunst’s cultural dimensions

Gudykunst has brought up two dimensions that he findsimportant to understand the communication across cultures.We have already treated one of his dimensions, individualism-collectivism. Another dimension that he also brings up tounderstand the communication differences is the high- and lowcontext culture communication dimension.

86 Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, Nishida, 199687 Gudykunst & Kim, 1997


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A high context communication is one in which “most of theinformation is either in the physical context or internalised inthe person, while very little is in the coded, explicitlytransmitted part of the message”. A low contextcommunication, in contrast, is one in which “the mass ofinformation is established in the explicit code”. People in a highcontext society expects their interlocutors to share the samemindsets thus knowing what they mean without explicitlyhaving to communicate it. In low context cultures, people knowthat the message their interlocutors want to express is to befound in the message that is actually transmitted. Members oflow context, individualistic cultures tend to communicate in adirect fashion while the opposite tend to be more common inhigh context, collectivistic societies.88

People in high- and low context cultures do not regard conflictsin the same way. People in low context cultures interpret thesource of the conflicts as being instrumental, i.e. differences inviews on goals and practices. People can therefore argue overtask-oriented issues without getting personal. People in highcontext cultures tend to see conflicts arising from expressivecultures. 89

5.1.3 Trompenaars’ cultural dimensions90

Trompenaars has also developed cultural dimensions. He hasworked a lot with Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions as astarting point. We will now present the five cultural dimensionsthat Trompenaars has developed.

The first dimension is universalism versus particularism or inother words, societal versus personal obligation. Universalism isapplied where people believe that the truth and what is goodcan be discovered, defined and “applied” everywhere. Focus is,in these cultures, more on rules than on relationships, and legalcontracts are ready drawn up. In countries that are said to be

88 Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, Nishida, 199689 Ibid90 Hoecklin, 1994


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universalistic, there is only one truth or reality that has beenagreed to already. Particularism, however, exists where focus ismore on relationships than on rules. The unique circumstancesand relationships are more important when determining whatis right and good than abstract rules. This dimension isimportant to understand when for example writing contracts inbusiness. Universalistic cultures spend a lot of time and energyon contracts while particularistic cultures tend to rely more onrelationships with the people they close the deal with.Countries high on universalism are the USA, Germany, Swedenand the UK. Countries high on particularism are Venezuela,Russia and China.

Individualism versus collectivism or personal versus group goals,is the second dimension. This issue has been treated by manyresearchers in this subject and we have in our frame ofreference chosen to present what Hofstede and Gudykunsthave written about this as well as Trompenaars. This issueconcerns how groups resolve their problems; does a personregard him-/herself primarily as an individual or primarily aspart of a group? Within collectivistic societies people identify tovarious groups e.g. the church, the union, their family etc.People ideally achieve in groups which assumes jointresponsibility. In individualistic cultures people are assumedpersonal responsibility and ideally achieve alone. Thisdimension is important to understand when it comes tonegotiations, decision-making and motivation. Countries highon individualism are the USA, Czechoslovakia, Argentina, theUK and Sweden. Countries high on collectivism are Singapore,Thailand, Japan and France.

The third of Trompenaars’ dimensions is called neutral versusaffective relationships or emotional orientation in relationships.This dimension concerns the different context and ways thatcultures choose to express emotions. In affective cultures,expressing emotions openly is more “natural” while in moreneutral cultures people believe that emotions should becontrolled and should not be shown or appear to be out ofcontrol. There is a tendency for neutral cultures to consideroutbursts of anger, delight or intensity in the workplace as


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unprofessional. Countries that tend to be neutral are Japan, theUK and Australia while countries that tend to be affective areMexico, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Sweden does not endup in any of the extremes but rather in the middle.

Specific versus diffuse relationships or degree of involvement inrelationships. This dimension deals with the degree ofinvolvement individuals are comfortable with in dealing withother people. There are various levels of personality, from amore public level to a more private one. There can be culturaldifferences in the size of people’s public and private levels aswell as the degree to which they feel comfortable sharing thoseparts of their personality with other people. People in specificcultures have more “open” public spaces and more “closed”private spaces. They appear direct, open and extrovert and arecareful to separate work and private life. In more diffusecultures people are quite the opposite where they appearindirect, are closed and introvert and they keep their work andprivate life closely linked. Countries that tend to be specific arethe UK, the USA and France while countries that are morediffuse are Venezuela, China, Spain and Sweden.

The fifth and last dimension that Trompenaars has developed isachievement versus ascription or legitimation of power and status.This dimension is important to understand how status andpower in a society are determined. Status can be based either onwhat someone does or on what someone is. In achievementoriented countries, at work, people are evaluated by how wellthey perform. Relationships are related to one’s colleagues andsuccess is universally defined as for example increased sales. Inascriptive cultures, status is attributed to people that naturallyachieves it by being either charismatic or highly skilled. Thestatus is generally independent of a task or specific function.Countries that are more achievement oriented are the USA, theUK and Sweden while countries that tend to be more ascriptionoriented are Venezuela, Indonesia and China.


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5.2 Communication

An average person takes in 25% of what is spoken tohim/her and remembers only 10%.91

Communication is the process of using signs and symbols thatcreate meaning in another person for whatever intent, or evenwithout conscious intent, on the part of the person producingthe symbols or signs.92 Simon, Vazquez and Harris talk abouttwo mindsets when communicating; saying something tosomeone else and considering communication to be acollaborative effort between people to create meaning andaction. The easiest way to describe communication is by thefigure below.93

Source: Own interpretation from Joynt & Moran, 1996

Most communication is manifested through symbols that differin their meaning according to time, place, culture or person.Communication skills include gestures, signs, shapes, colours,sounds, pictures and many other symbols.94 When wecommunicate we attach meaning to (or interpret) messages weconstruct and transmit to others. We also attach meaning to (orinterpret) messages that we receive from others. To say that twopeople have communicated effectively requires that the twoattach relatively similar meanings to the messages sent andreceived. 95

Culture plays an important role here since it is one’s culturalbackground that has decided what is unimportant for us to hearand acts thus as a filter. To say we communicate does not imply

91 Simon, Vàzquez, Harris,199392 Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, Nishida, 199693 Joynt & Moran, 199694 Ibid95 Gudykunst, 1991

Sender ReceiverMessage

Verbally/ Nonverbally


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an outcome. Whether or not a specific instance ofcommunication is effective or not depends on the degree towhich the participants attach similar meanings to the messageexchanged. What is important to the speaker may be differentfrom what is important to us or contradicted by otherinformation we receive.96

5.2.1 Communication in a multicultural environment

In a multicultural project group (or any organisation wherepeople from a multicultural background work together) Harrisand Moran speak of cross-cultural communication.Communication across cultural boundaries is difficult sincedifferences in customs, behaviour and values may causeproblems. These occur when people fail to recognise thatpersons of other cultural backgrounds have different goals,customs, cognitive maps and values. Effective cross-culturalcommunication and interaction is the only way to manage thesekind of problems. One is very perceptive when working withinone’s own culture since it is easier to know what ideas that areaccepted or rejected and when others are following theconversation. However, when communicating across culturesthere is a real possibility of reading people incorrectly.Problems occur when one does not pay close enough attentionor actively listen to what an individual is trying tocommunicate.97 Gudykunst has also treated this subject but haschosen to name it intercultural communication and defines it asface to face communication between people with differentcultural backgrounds. The degree of “interculturalness” of acommunication depends on the degree of heterogeneity of thepeople involved. When people have a highly similarworldview, normative patterns, code systems and perceivedrelationships and intent, then the level of interculturalness islow and communication will proceed with minimal effort andmaximum accuracy.

96 Gudykunst, 199197 Joynt & Moran, 1996


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Awareness is of course one of the most important keys whenmanaging multicultural groups. Just as important as it is to beaware of differences of other peoples’ cultures and what thatbrings, it is vital to understand that management philosophiesare deeply rooted in culture and that management practicesdeveloped in one culture may not easily transfer to another98.Communication and culture influence each other. The culturein which individuals are socialised influences the way theycommunicate and the way they communicate can change theculture they share over time.99

There are many definitions of culture, but to sum it up onecan say that it is what ties people together (clothes,language, values, norms, practices and attitudes). Culturecan be described in terms of both levels, where weconcentrate on national culture, and layers, where we touchboth the outer and the middle layer. It is important to beaware of and to be able to identify cultural differences whenmanaging a multicultural project. Different culturalbackgrounds often implies different values, habits andbehaviours and there are many problems that can be tracedto cultural differences in a workgroup. We have presentedcultural dimensions of three different authors; Hofstede,Trompenaars and Gudykunst. The dimensions have beendeveloped to easier understand how cultures differ. We havealso learnt that culture plays an important role whencommunicating. It affects the way we communicate and theway we interpret what is said. Cultural awareness is hencean important key to succeed in interculturalcommunication.

98 Harris & Moran, 199699 Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, Nishida, 1996


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6 Empirical data

In this chapter we will present, in brief, our empiricalfindings. Five project leaders in two of Sweden’s largestcompanies have been interviewed about their experiences ofmulticultural project work. The reader will get an idea ofwhat kind of problems that occur, if and how the Swedishmanager needs to adapt, what characteristics amulticultural leader needs and the pros and cons ofconducting a multicultural project.

6.1 Introduction

We have chosen to interview people from two traditionalSwedish companies, Skanska and Atlas Copco, which arerepresented in a great part of the world. Working on projectswhere the participants are from different countries is not anunusual situation in these companies. However, thecharacteristics of the projects do differ in the two companies.Skanska’s projects involve hundreds of people for examplewhen building a reservoir in Tanzania. They usually co-operatewith other international companies as well as with localorganisations and this results in a complex and internationalproject organisation. Atlas Copco, on the other hand, usuallywork with projects internally, without any intervention fromother organisations. Their international projects do most ofteninclude people that work for different Atlas Copco companiesaround the world. This does not necessarily mean that thesepeople leave their country when working on a project except forshorter periods of time when meeting up with the rest of theproject members and the communication is handled by mailand telephone. Their projects are usually of a productdeveloping character and they often work on an internationalbasis where the projects normally do not comprise as manypeople as the projects at Skanska. These differences in projectcharacter, we believe, do not constitute an obstacle for us whencomparing their experiences of multicultural projects. We have


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chosen to present the answers in a narrative style, where wehave intertwined the answers with examples that ourinterviewees have given us to make it more comprehensible.We would like to remind the reader that what is written in thischapter is exclusively the answers, ideas, thoughts and feelingsthat the people we interviewed communicated to us. None ofour own opinions are expressed here.

6.2 Problems common in multicultural projects

The first questions that we brought up was one of the mainissue in this thesis – do problems exist in multicultural projectsthat are specific to these kinds of projects? All of theinterviewees claimed that they have experienced some kind ofdifficulties or problems when working on multiculturalprojects. Most of them were focusing on the communicationissue and we will present the answers below. We have chosento divide them into different headings to make it more clear.We will also present the description given by our intervieweesof the Swedish management style since it is an importantinfluence in the way Swedish managers communicate.

6.2.1 Language

The first problem brought up was the communication problem,where language barriers were in focus. These problems occurboth with manual workers as well as at managerial levels.However opinions differed in how to handle these differences.One Skanska employee told us that “when working with manydifferent nationalities an international language tends to develop, asort of modified English”. He had experienced that “people that donot have a good command of English speak their own language but areunderstood with the help of hand gestures”. Another Skanskaemployee told us that they had sent a group leader to Tanzaniain the mid-seventies to supervise a construction site withoutknowing a word of English and he managed to get hisemployees to understand him by going around showing them


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what he expected them to do. A third Skanska employee told usthat when working in Peru on a project, they had to holdmeetings in two languages, English and Spanish, to be able tocommunicate with everyone involved. Having to hold meetingsand to negotiate in a language different from one’s own is oftena negative factor. It is easy to find oneself in a disadvantageousposition when working with people in their native language.However, he continued by saying that this situation might notalways implicate that one is in a weak position. “Negotiating in aforeign language can allow oneself to be more vague and to take moretime to think when speaking.”

An Atlas Copco employee explained that the language used intheir organisation is English but many people in other countriesdo not speak the language very well. “Hopefully there is at leastone on the project that masters the language and can act as aninterpreter”. This situation is more common on the middlemanagement level. Another Atlas Copco employee said that onthe corporate level, the level of English knowledge was usuallyquite good and the actual language was not really a problem.“It is more the way of communicating that could be a source ofproblems”.

People from both companies had experienced that Frenchpeople are difficult to work with since they only want to speakFrench and can be perceived as ignorant if people do not speakFrench.

6.2.2 Misunderstandings

The language problem was not the only one mentioned. Theyall mentioned that misunderstanding is a common problem inmulticultural projects. There are of course misunderstandingsdue to language differences but many misunderstandings are ofcultural origin. A lot of the misunderstandings can be traced tothe different ways of communicating that we will bring up lateron. Our interviewees all agreed that “misunderstandings alwaysoccur when conducting a multicultural project”. Because ofdifferent frames of reference people perceive different things


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out of the same information. However, someone said that “theyare usually more common initially and will after hand be of lessimportance”. An example of such misunderstandings is whentalking to Asian people that out of politeness say that theyunderstand even when they do not.

Having the cultural differences in mind, we treated thetechnical misunderstanding that can occur in a project. AFrench engineer and a Swedish engineer have a simulareducational background but might still find it difficult tounderstand one another, not considering the languagedifferences. Their education has taught them to regard problemsolving in different manners, which still can lead tomisunderstandings.

Different nations have different perspectives of time and thiswas brought up as an issue that sometimes creates certainirritation. Latin-Americans was mentioned as one group ofpeople that do not take the time issue very seriously. They aresaid to often arrive late to meetings etc. while Swedes andGermans, that are known to be very punctual, feel that “beinglate is showing a lack of respect and not appreciating the presence ofthe other group members”, hence resulting in conflicts.

6.2.3 Communication patterns and the Swedish management style

How the communication patterns differ between differentnationalities was another of the more important problems thatwere brought up in our interviews. Many of the intervieweesspoke about a typical Swedish organisation and leadership thatinfluence Swedish people’s way of communicating. Swedes donot appreciate the hierarchical organisation the way that forexample Italians do. A Swedish organisations are more “flat” inits nature, which of course affects the way people communicate.Communication tends to be more informal and Swedes addresspeople at all different levels in the hierarchy without feelinguneasy. A Swedish manager can for example give direct ordersto a worker, skipping the contact with the middle manager. ALatin-American middle manager would probably be offended


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by this behaviour and might regard it as disrespecting thehierarchical order. When it comes to being informal, Swedesmay be regarded as disrespectful for addressing managers assomeone “equal”. A German middle manager in a meeting witha superior would not do the talking unless he/she is addresseddirectly. Another example given to us that clearly shows thedifference was that “when observing a group of Latin-American orItalian people one can clearly see who the boss is since he is usually inthe front doing all the talking. When observing a group of Swedishpeople, figuring out who the boss is, is more difficult since people at alldifferent levels in the organisation can speak more or less freely”. ASwedish middle manager might experience adversity if notaware of this phenomena.

Wanting to reach consensus in discussions and decisions issomething typically Swedish according to the people weinterviewed. This is a common source of misunderstandingsince people from cultures that are used to hierarchicalorganisations find comfort and security in having the decisionstaken for them. When a Swedish manager wants to discuss anissue with these kinds of people they misinterpret thisbehaviour as being indecisive and unable to taking decisions onhis/her own. One of the people we interviewed even said that“Swedish managers are not trained to take on the role as a manager inan international environment” where many nationalities are usedto a more authoritarian manager. An Englishman, not used toworking as independently as a Swede, expects his/her managerto take the decisions and needs to be supervised more. Some ofthe interviewees admitted that the Swedish management style,described above, can cause a lack of respect for the manageramong the employees but at the same time none of the peoplewe talked to had had any experience of this problem.

6.2.4 Personality goes a long way

There was one interviewee in particular who wanted toemphasise that there is always a risk of people creatingprejudice against a whole nation after only a few encounterswith people from that country. Therefore it is important to have


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in mind that behaviour different from one’s own does not haveto be a result of cultural differences. The individual’spersonality plays an important role in the way he/she behavesprofessionally and might differ from the “typical” behaviour ofthe nation. A conflict depending on personality differencescould just as well occur between two people from the samenation. He believed that “all differences one experiences whenworking with foreign people need to be looked at as personalitydifferences first before judging the differences as cultural”.

6.2.5 How serious are the problems?

The issues that we have presented above have not caused thefailure of projects but have still been experienced as difficultiesand issues that is important to overcome. However, theinterviewees emphasised that these kinds of problemsmentioned were not seen as great obstacles when conducting aproject.

6.3 How to avoid cultural clashes

The Skanska employees told us that “conflicts sometimes have ledto people being sent home from projects abroad” – but this solutionis not the most common one. If these conflicts have arisen fromcultural differences or if it simply was a question of not gettingalong due to personality of the individuals in question isdifficult to determine. To eliminate cultural clashes as far aspossible Skanska has, in some projects, chosen to work withcompanies from other countries in a consortium. This meansthat the different companies divide the project physically, forexample the Italians are responsible for building the reservoir,the Swedes are responsible for the tunnel work while the Dutchtook care of the road building. This way the arguments andmisunderstandings are reduced during the actual execution ofthe construction.


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In the Atlas Copco projects it is common that certain peoplerecur in several international projects. These people come tounderstand the Swedish culture and management and thisdiminishes misunderstandings and makes it easier to worktogether. It is easier to work on projects with people that havehad some international experience and are used to working in aglobal atmosphere and have developed a comprehension of theinternational jargon. Skanska also brought this up. After havingtrained local people for a project in Peru they brought thesepeople with them to the next project in Panama to be able totake advantage of their experiences of work as a part of amultinational workforce. It is easier for the ones that havetravelled a lot to adapt to a new environment, being used toconfrontations with different cultures and situations. Peoplewho never left their home country are very much influenced bytheir own culture and might have difficulties to adapt tointernational project work.

6.4 When in Rome…

When a project leader gets assigned to a project that consists ofseveral different nationalities, how does he/she handle thissituation? Does the project manager just go on managing thegroup the same way he/she would have done with a totallySwedish group or are there any adjustments that have to bemade to the managerial style?

According to the people we spoke to it is impossible to managea project by doing as one always does, without taking anyconsideration to the nationality and customs of the projectmembers. One of the Atlas Copco employees said that there aresome project managers that go on with their own leadershipstyle without adjusting to the project members or the hostcountry’s culture. In the end, these are the people thatexperience the most problems. As one Skanska employee put it,“you cannot come to a new culture thinking you can change itbecause you consider your own Swedish way of doing things better,especially when you are a guest in this country. You cannot change


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the already existing routines and rules”. Another Skanskaemployee said “we have to accept other nationalities’ ways of doingthings even if it seems strange to us”.

Maintaining one’s own Swedish managerial style is not alwaysappropriate. We have mentioned earlier how a Swedishmanager can be perceived abroad, insecure when trying toreach consensus and disrespectful to the hierarchical order. Toobtain effective leadership it is necessary to adapt. Zambia wasmentioned as an example where the project manager needed tobe more authoritarian to get respect, while the Thais failed toshow up at work the next day when the manager had raised hisvoice. “You had to start thinking about what you said all the time tobe sure not to offend anyone” as one Skanska employee put it.

One person claimed that, in general, some kind of internationalatmosphere is created where everyone needs to adapt. Someother persons said that it is often one nation’s culture thatdominates the project. The dominance of one nation can dependeither on that this nation is financing the project or that themajority of the workers are from this country.

That some kind of adaptation is necessary was concluded andsomeone said that if you do not adapt to the local governmentor the local partners that you co-operate with, they mightdecide to make life difficult for you. Someone else agreed butsaid at the same time that “one has to be careful not to adapt toomuch and forget about one’s own values and norms and that it isimportant to create one’s own policies before going abroad to work as aproject manager”. One of the Skanska employees that hadworked for many years on projects said that he had had to sitdown and actively consider his leadership style. It is always ofgreat help to learn from one’s own mistakes. He believed thatthe ones that are project managers for the first time will notactively adjust their leadership style. He said that it was likethat for him when he first started and he guesses that he waslucky not to have been taken advantage of.

The people from Skanska had experienced that it was moredifficult to adapt to new cultures when socialising after work.


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They had all been away on projects abroad for longer periods oftime and, more or less, had to live with the other people on theproject. Even if they had experienced cultural clashes at workthey found them to be even more obvious outside work.However, one of them said that even if they were more obviousand did of course matter, they were not of too great importance,what happened at work was more important. To be able to getalong, they said that “it is essential to be open-minded and try tolearn from each other”. Food, religion and entertainment are alsoissues that differ among cultures. For example the Skanskaemployees wanted to show the Peruvians a bit of the Swedishculture and it ended up with everybody holding hands dancingaround a red cottage. They experienced that Latin- and South-Americans are easier to get along with privately since theirlifestyle did not differ much from the Swedish one. In Africa,however, they found it rare to socialise outside work even withpeople at corporate levels that might have been abroad inEurope to study. They experienced that the way of livingdiffered too much.

6.5 Characteristics of a multicultural projectmanager

When asking what characteristics a leader in multiculturalprojects needs the answers were almost unanimous, “he/sheneeds to be able to adapt to new people, new cultures andenvironment”. “Flexible” was a word that was used in thiscontext. “To be sensitive to other people’s needs and customs” wasalso something that was brought up as well as “being able toaccept the differences that exist among people in a project group”.“Having the ability to get people to strive towards the same goal” isalways important in a project but was said to be even moreimportant in a multicultural project since people from differentnations solve problems in different ways as we mentionedearlier. “To be able to communicate and get the message through” isof course of greatest importance to be able to achieve efficiencyin a project group. Such a leader must be able to imagine howthe receiver of the message perceives what he/she is trying to


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say, bearing the culture and that person’s frame of reference inmind. This leader must also understand what that person wantsto get out of the project, e.g. a French middle manager might behungering for status while the Zambian wants food to hisfamily.

As we presented earlier, a non-authoritarian Swedish managerthat goes abroad might have difficulties at first to gain respect.One of the Atlas Copco employees said that “an importantcharacteristic is then to be very knowledgeable in the area to gainrespect that way”. Another characteristic that was believed to beimportant is to be aware of that people in countries with morehierarchical societies and companies have clear roleassignments that are important to respect.

6.6 Pros and cons with multicultural projects

After having discussed all the problems that can and do occurwhen working on a multicultural project we asked theinterviewees to answer the question “what is positive aboutworking on a project where many nationalities mix?” They allsaid that conducting such projects is a necessity today since theworld is becoming more and more global. The Atlas Copcoemployees said that no other reality is possible and one of themsaid that the product usually is better when having beeninfluenced by people with different backgrounds. Conductingglobal marketing projects, for example, would be difficultwithout help from other nationalities since messages andcommunication is very culture bound. Further one of themclaimed that “it is more interesting to work on multicultural projectssince there is so much to learn from people of other nationalities”.

The Skanska people said that financing was one of the mostpositive aspects of having a multicultural project. Their projectsare usually of great scale and without the international partnersthey are difficult to carry through. Further they said that manygovernments do not allow a foreign company to come in totheir country without engaging any of the natives.


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The negative aspects of conducting multicultural projects hadof course to do with the language barriers and the recurrentmisunderstandings. These problems cause a slowdown inefficiency since double-checking that everyone has understoodand trying to co-ordinate people and get them to strive towardsthe same goal take longer time. There are usually moremeetings and discussions in the beginning of a project. Havingto hold meetings in two languages, as mentioned earlier, wasconsidered to ”slowdown the pace both in the thinking-process aswell as when it comes to the efficiency”. That the organisationbecomes more bureaucratic is another of the negative aspectsthat occur.

To summarise our empirical findings we can say that the intervieweesall agreed on the fact that problems always occur when working onmulticultural projects. The problems consisted of language differences,misunderstandings because of different way of communicating andbehavioural differences. They all agreed on that it exists a Swedishmanagement style as well as on the necessity to adapt when workingwith people from different cultures. The most common problems aSwedish manager can encounter is that he/she is too informal, notcaring about the hierarchy that is common in many parts of the worldas well as being too consensus conscious. To be flexible, to be able toadapt as well as to be sensitive to new people and cultures wereimportant characteristics of a multicultural project manager. Finally,they all said that working in multicultural projects is a necessity tothem and that they do not, in today’s society, really have a choice.


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7 Analysis

In our analysis we will apply our empirical findings on theframe of reference to see if the theories correspond to thereality. Further we will give our own opinions and thoughtson the subject. To make it more clear the analysis will followthe same structure as the frame of reference. We would liketo point out that we will not treat Swedish managementseparately but will integrate it all through the analysis.

7.1 The project

7.1.1 Its structure

The project structure can look very different depending on inwhich organisation the project is conducted. As Wisén andLindblom stated, the goal and the nature of a project will decideits structure. Skanska and Atlas Copco are two organisations inwhich the projects look very different but they still follow theclassical definition of what a project is with a specific goal,defined start and end dates, limited funding and being aseparate organisation in the main organisation. While AtlasCopco has smaller project groups, Skanska can engage up tothousands of people on their projects. The magic number ofproject members according to Nytell et al is between three toseven people to obtain an efficient project group. Only lookingat that theory, Skanska’s projects would be far from efficient,but we agree with Wisén and Lindblom that the projectstructure should fit the project’s nature and purpose. Thereforewe believe that the great number of people engaged on theirprojects is justified by this latter theory.

7.1.2 Its purpose

Lindström-Myrgård has said that one of the reasons to why anorganisation chooses to work with projects is that this


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organisational form leads to a learning organisation where themembers learn from each other. This opinion was confirmed byone of the interviewees at Atlas Copco who added that theinternational projects are much more interesting since theypresent opportunities to learn new things from new peoplewith other perspectives. Hence creating a learning organisationthat Lindström-Myrgård discusses.

7.1.3 Its members

Many theorists have stated different opinions when it comes toa group’s composition. Some mean that mixed project groups,not only in nationality but also in gender, age andprofessionally, are more creative and effective. Others state thatit is the homogeneity in groups that reinforces the team-spirit.What did our interviewees have to say about their experiencesof hetero– and homogeneity in project groups? First of all theyall mentioned that they do not really have a choice, beinginternational means that they need information about thedifferent markets hence needing to co-operate world-wide.

However, it is not only out of force that the companies chose toform projects internationally. When mixing project membersthey agree that the group becomes more creative since thedifferent project members look at things differently and thatway, as we mentioned earlier, get the positive effect of learningfrom each other. However they disagree with the authors whobelieve that a mixed project group will be more effective. Thedifferences in languages and ways of communicating arebelieved to have a negative effect on the efficiency. Adler claimsthat the performance of the group is a result of how well theycan manage these differences, and the project manager plays avery important role in this process. This clearly shows thedifference in managing a mixed project group and a morehomogeneous one.

Trinandis claims that to be effective, a project group should behomogeneous in ability level and heterogeneous in attitudes.However, we do not agree that this composition would be


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successful in an international project group. The ability level ofa truck driver in Pakistan and in England could be equal andthe mix of personalities could be optimal, but the efficiencymight still be lower because of problems in understanding eachother. Therefore we believe that Trinandis’ theory is not reallyapplicable on project groups where a variety of nationalities areinvolved.

7.2 Project management

There are theories on what characteristics an effective projectmanager needs to have. According to some of the literature, aproject manager needs to be able to create a communicativeattitude in the project group and to establish friendlyrelationships in meetings as well as to create an environmentwhere people feel comfortable to interact. Judging from whatwe have learnt from our interviewees, the Swedish managerhas many characteristics that resembles the description above.They described the typical Swedish manager as informal,friendly and relation oriented which corresponds to earlierstudies in this subject. Bearing this description in mind of atypical Swedish leader, our interviewees claimed that Swedishmanagers might experience initial problems to attain powerand respect in multicultural projects. Those people living inmore hierarchical countries are used to leaders that are moreauthoritarian and as one of the interviewees mentioned, in agroup of Italians it is not difficult to see who the leader is sincehe is the one doing all the talking. The Swedish leader is ofteneager to reach a consensus in meetings and discussions and canbe regarded as a weak and indecisive leader. This problem isonly initial though since either the project group learns toaccept this behaviour or the leader needs to adjust and becomemore authoritarian. As we can see an adjustment is most oftennecessary and since the project members are in majority it isoften the project leader that needs to adjust his/her leadership.Our theory is that the less knowledge and experience theproject members have of multicultural encounters, the moreimportant it is that the project leader adjusts to the new


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environment. The more knowledge and experience the projectmembers have of international co-operation hence having metand worked with other cultures, different from their own, theadjustment will be of less extent.

Lawrence & Lorsh have created the term “integrator” todescribe an effective project leader. This person needs to havethe characteristics that we have discussed above but also needsto be able to get everyone in the project to strive towards thesame goal. This characteristic was mentioned as one of the mostimportant ones by our interviewees of how an effective leaderin a multicultural project should be. However, Lawrence &Lorsh continue by stating that an effective integrator isaggressive, confident, persuasive and seeks status. Neither theinterviewees nor we believe that these characteristics alwaysare necessary and sometimes not even desirable. As oneSkanska employee told us, one cannot be aggressive and raiseone’s voice at a Thai since he will not show up at work the nextday if being treated that way. Swedes are more used to workingin “flat” organisations and therefore we believe that seekingstatus is not one of the most crucial features for a Swedishmanager to be successful.

7.2.1 Management behaviour

We have presented theories on the actual project group treatingdifferent aspects on role relations. Task– and relation orientedmanagers have been discussed and both aspects should berepresented in one’s leadership style. Judging from theinterviews though, we feel that a manager in a multiculturalproject needs to be slightly more relation oriented, working onimproving the relationships in the group, to be able to deal withthe members of different background. The interviewees putgreat emphasis on sensitiveness of the leader to be able to pickup the differences that could become potential problems.

Out of Yukl’s ten characteristics of management behaviour wefind planning, informing, being able to clarifying roles andobjectives and managing conflicts as the most important ones


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for a multicultural project manager. Our interviewees listedthese characteristics in one way or another as being important.By planning Yukl means the carrying out of the actual project.We however, include other aspects of planning when it comesto leading a multinational project. We find it equally important,as a manager, to sit down and, as one Skanska employee said,plan ones leadership to be prepared to meet a multinationalwork force that will have different demands on the manager.

Informing is a sensitive issue that easily could lead to conflictsif not handled carefully. Since language and cognitive structurediffer between members in a multicultural project, it is evenmore important to be clear and precise as well as being able toimagine how the other person perceives the information given.

Different cultures have different role distributions, somecountries are more hierarchical than others. Sweden is not oneof these countries, and as a Swedish manager in a groupconsisting of various nationalities it is important to clarify andunderstand the roles everybody plays in a hierarchy. If this isnot done properly the manager may encounter problems suchas lack of respect and trust.

During the interviews our suspicions were verified, there arealways conflicts of cultural background in this kind of projects.However small they are they still have to be dealt with, and theresponsibility lies on the project manager and therefore it isimportant that he/she is good at managing conflicts.

We find all of the characteristics mentioned above important tobe able to achieve an effective leadership. If the project managersucceeds to understand the cultural differences and in this waycome to communicate well with the project members, he/shehelps him/her self create, what Yukl calls, a committed workforce. If the manager does not succeed, for example by notwanting to adjust to the prevailing situation, he/she can insteadget the work force turned against him/her and create resistancewhere people will not be willing to go along with the manager’sdecisions. If a manager successfully adopts these characteristics


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he/she can achieve power and be able to influence the projectmembers.

7.2.2 Adapting the control methods in projects

Depending on the nationalities in a project, methods to controlthe performance of the group members, and that the actualoutcome is the desired one, are different. Judging from theinterviewees’ experiences the manager needs to be moreauthoritarian in some countries, which implies that actioncontrol is a suitable way to see to that the objectives arefulfilled. Zambia and Tanzania were mentioned as suchcountries where this kind of control would be suitable. Thesemanagers experienced that people needed direct instructions onexactly what to do to feel safe and comfortable in their workenvironment. We have got the impression that action control inits extreme form is more used in projects where the membersdo not have competence enough to perform an independentjob. However, we have understood that in certain countries, asfor example the UK, even highly educated people feelcomfortable knowing that they do not have to make decisionsof their own and this kind of control can be implemented in anot so extreme form.

Other nationalities, Swedes for example, are used to anddemand certain independence when it comes to their work. Inthis environment results control could be a good managementalternative giving the employees more or less free hands inachieving the desired objective. We believe that this form ofmanagement control is most common in organisations thathave a more flat organisational structure. Skanska has used thiskind of control to try to avoid conflicts depending on culturaldifferences as far as possible. When starting a constructionproject, the project can be divided into different responsibilityareas independent from each other so that different companiesare responsible for different parts. Since every companyinvolved in such a project is responsible for its own part thiscould be regarded as an implementation of results control,where every company independently decides how they will


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carry out their part of the project. By doing this, contactbetween the different companies/nationalities is diminished,hence lowering the risk of cultural clashes.

Looking at how Atlas Copco works we believe that resultscontrol is much more common than action control. However wehave also seen examples of how they implement personnelcontrol in their projects. As one Atlas Copco employeementioned it is common that the same people occur in differentprojects. By doing that these people become more adjusted tothe international spirit and can more easily confront and adaptto new situations and cultures. By carefully choosing andtraining ones work force this way a manager exerts personnelcontrol. This is also a behaviour that we noticed exists inSkanska groups. For example, after having trained local peoplein Peru Skanska was eager to bring them along to their nextproject in Panama since they now had experience from workingin a multicultural environment.

As with many of the managerial behaviours these forms ofmanagement control are seldom implemented solely, but arecombined in different proportions depending on the prevailingsituation.

7.3 Culture

If one understands that the cultural differences consist ofdifferences in mindsets, standards and the way people solveproblems, one can clearly see how easy misunderstandings andclashes can occur. When first encountering people from anotherculture, for example on a project, the first thing that one noticesis differences in clothing, language and food. These differencesare relatively easy to overcome. Skanska employees told us thatthey made up their own language to be able to understand eachother and that the language problems were only perceived asproblems initially. Trompenaars describes this level of cultureas the outer layer, maybe because it is the easiest culturemanifestation to notice and also the easiest difference to


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overcome. Having talked to people that have worked onmulticultural projects, they all describe the cultural differencesto be more serious when one starts scraping on the surface andpenetrates the culture. Reaching the next level of culture thatTrompenaars calls the middle layer, the differences becomemore important since it is now about beliefs and meanings andinformal laws. These differences are more difficult to overcome.They can be discussed though so that acceptance and maybeeven understanding can be reached. A Swedish manager cannotice these differences in for example hierarchical countrieswhere communication needs to go through the different levelsof the hierarchy to be approved. Since the Swedes use a moreinformal way of communicating, going through the hierarchicallevels seem like a time-consuming way of communicating buthe/she might understand that this is the way their society isbuilt and accepts this way. However, people’s basicassumptions, hidden in the core of the culture are very difficultto reach and confront. Trying to explain our basic assumptionsto someone outside our culture is difficult since maybe we arenot aware of them ourselves. We have difficulties in finding anexample because we think that they are so basic that one cannotpin it down.

7.3.1 Cultural dimensions

Three authors have presented their view on how to interpretculture by developing cultural dimensions. We believe that ourfindings are easier to understand when using some ofHofstede’s and Gudykunst’s cultural dimensions.Trompenaars’ cultural dimensions have been presented but wefeel that they are difficult to apply to our thoughts and willtherefore leave Trompenaars to his fate.

Hofstede’s dimensions are all important for the understandingbut our interviewees only brought up information that can beapplied to two of them. The uncertainty avoidance dimensionaffects to what extent people need to be controlled by formalrules and how much tolerance they have for people withdifferent ideas and behaviour. In such a country it is important


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for a project manager to be able to provide the rules wantedand to adjust to the people’s conception of what normalmanagerial behaviour is. France is an example of a country withhigh uncertainty avoidance. A few interviewees mentioned theproblems that occur when working with French people. Theirunwillingness to speak another language but French and howthey are perceived as ignorant towards foreigners that do notspeak their language could be regarded as a sign of trying toavoid unfamiliarity. We ourselves have experienced that thereis a resistance towards foreign influences in France, whichamplifies the picture of them being high in uncertaintyavoidance. Sweden on the other hand tends to be low inuncertainty avoidance and this thought was supported by ourinterviewees. They believed that a Swedish project manageradjusts easier and learns a new language faster than his/herAmerican colleague for example. This ability to adapt might bederived form the fact that Swedes as a small population alwayshave been subjected to foreign influences, hence being moretolerant of uncertainty.

The second dimension that seemed to be of importance whentalking to the project managers was the power distance. Thisdimension is important for understanding the behaviour in rolerelationships in different cultures. Sweden is a country withlow power distance, this is shown by the description of aSwedish leader that have been given to us. As we havementioned before, Swedes like to operate in organisationswhere the structure is more flat and the atmosphere is informal.Therefore it is important to realise that there exists other levelsof power distance in the world. As we have seen, it is importantfor a manager in a multicultural project to clarify the roles thatpeople have in order to be able to be an efficient manager.

Gudykunst has created a dimension, the high and low contextcultures, that we also find of importance for a project managerin a multicultural project. A manager from a high contextsociety needs to be aware of that people from another culturemight not share the same mindsets. This awareness is of greatimportance when it comes to the way of communicating. Amanager from a high context culture needs to learn to


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communicate in a more direct and explicit way to get people ina low context culture to understand.

7.3.2 How to communicate effectively

Effective communication is not only depending on the one whois talking, the message transmitted needs to be received bysomeone that attaches a similar meaning to it. This is one of themulticultural project manager’s most important tasks. It isimportant that the manager knows whom he/she is talking toand in what way the message needs to be transmitted to beunderstood correctly. (Is the person from a high context cultureor from a very hierarchical country?) A good example of a non-effective communication can be when Swedes meet withJapanese. We have been told that Japanese people have atendency to answer affirmative on questions even though theymight not even have understood the question. With this wewant to point at the difficulties when communicating withdifferent cultures. A foreign manager working with Japanesepeople might have to make an effort to double check if themessage really has been received and understood properly.

Differences in customs, behaviour and values have beenbrought up when discussing difficulties in cross-culturecommunication. Therefore it is essential that a multiculturalproject leader is culturally sensitive hence recognising thatpeople from other cultures might have different goals andpatterns of communication.

The members’ composition in a project group and the projectmanager’s cultural background play an important role to howcommunication is handled. Some theorists mean thatheterogeneity in a project group will make it more efficient. Ourinterviewees however were more prone on agreeing withTrinandis who believe that communication is easier in ahomogeneous project group, hence maximising the group’sefficiency. It is only natural that nationally mixed groupsencounter difficulties in forms of misunderstandings based oncultural and linguistic differences. The linguistic barriers are of


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more importance initially since the group will develop theirown way of talking to each other. However, even though thelanguage barriers have been overcome, the cultural differenceswill still result in misunderstandings since all nationalities havetheir own way of interpreting information.


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8 Conclusions

In this concluding chapter we will summarise our mostimportant findings. We will start by looking back at ourresearch questions that will lead to us answering ourpurpose with this thesis.

The most common conflicts that occur in multicultural projectsare related to communication. Due to language barriers anddifferent ways of communicating, misunderstandings are notunusual. That language differences are a problem is not verysurprising and they often seem to be overcome after a wile.What many people do not think about though are thedifferences in ways to express oneself; gestures, tone of voice,hidden information in the message, etc. The context that peopleare used to also influences the patterns of communicationwhich in its turn leads to misunderstandings. Thesemisunderstandings can result in harsh conflicts that affect theoutcome of the project or lead to that the timeframe is not beingheld.

It appears as the problems are mostly related to nationaldifferences and not so much to educational background orprofession. Even though it sounds logical that technicians andeconomists would have some difficulties to understand oneanother our empirical data point towards national contextsbeing the greatest source of problems and conflicts. Twoengineers from different countries have been formed to thinkand solve tasks in different manners, which can lead to clashes.

As shown earlier the nationality of the members in a projectgroup, and the culture that comes with it, is quite important. Itis the culture that in many ways controls and governs ourunconscious behaviours and makes us react and reason the waywe do. Therefore the culture is important in a nationally mixedproject group.


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For a project manager it is essential to be aware of theimportance of national culture to be able to effectively managethe group. When leading a project group that is constituted of amixture of nationalities it is vital to have some knowledge ofhow different people think, act and react in different situations.With this knowledge the manager can adapt his/her way ofacting and carrying out information or orders and this wayavoid unnecessary arguments and conflicts. If the projectmanager does not have this proficiency he/she might end up inseveral conflicts that some understanding for other culturescould have helped to avoid. These conflicts will in turn slowdown the efficiency of a project, which might affect theprofitability in the long run. That is why cultural awareness isof greatest importance, not only for the everyday comfort andwell-being but also for economic aspects.

The Swedish management style is said to be characterised byconsensus-reaching, informality and keeping a low profile.When working with some nationalities these features are nottoo evident, perhaps because they are similar to the Swedes.Obviously, the more unlike the Swedes the people of the othernationality are the more evident the Swedish management styleis. The answer of the question “what are the most importantdifferences of Swedish leadership style in comparison to othernationalities” is depending on which nationality one iscomparing with. Every nationality has its specific features andmust be compared separately. We have stated some of the mostwell-known features that often are brought up when discussingthe Swedish management style. This gives a starting pointwhen wanting to compare management styles with othernationalities.

Are there problems that Swedish managers in specificencounter? We would like to emphasise that personality has agreat deal to do with conflicts that can occur in projects and it istherefore difficult to generalise and say that certain problemsare solely culture bound. We have however seen that someproblems are recurrent when bringing up conflicts that Swedishmanagers experience. Being too informal can create frustrationand lower the respect from people that are used to hierarchical


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order. Trying to reach consensus can also have a respectlowering effect since the manager might then be regarded asindecisive and not having enough knowledge.

Our purpose was to investigate if and how a Swedish projectmanager has to adapt his/her management style depending ofthe diversity of the ethnical background of the project workers.We can see that an adaptation is almost always necessaryjudging from our interviews. Different ethnical backgrounds ofthe people in the project group requires different adaptation.When working with people from countries that value formality,hierarchical order and authority it is necessary for the Swedishmanager to become more authoritarian and formal to be able toobtain the respect and power needed to be an effective projectleader. Yet again we emphasise the importance of notgeneralising, each nationality has features different fromanother and when wanting to conduct studies that are culturalbased it is important to bear this in mind. That is why it isdifficult for us to answer the question “how” a Swedishmanager needs to adapt, only that an adaptation is necessary.

Bibliography

Primary Data

Interviewees

Hans Andersson, SkanskaTore Hedlund, SkanskaBengt Råsled, SkanskaLars Eklöf, Atlas Copco, ABHans Mandahl, Atlas Copco, AB

Secondary Data

Literature

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Engwall M.;i Lundin & Midler, 1998,“Projects as arenas forrenewal and learning processes”, Kluwer Academic Publishers

Enshassi A.; 1994, The management style of multiculturalconstruction managers in the middle east, in Cleland D & Gareis,”Global project management handbook”, McGraw-Hill. Inc.

Eriksson & Wiedersheim-Paul; 1999, Att utreda, forska ochrapportera, Liber ekonomi

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Gustavsson P. and Melin L.; Swedish Management Style in aMultinational Company, in Sten Jönsson, 1996, “Perspectives ofScandinavian Management”, Grafikerna i Kungälv AB

Harris P. R. & Moran R. T.; 1996, Managing Cultural Differences,Leadership Strategies for a New World of Business, 4th edition, GulfPublishing Company

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Appendix 1

The Interview Guide� What kind of projects have you worked on? (The size in

number of people? Projects with only Swedish people or/andmulticultural projects?)

� What kind of people have worked on these projects? (Fromwhat countries have they been? Have their backgrounds beendifferent regarding education, gender etc.?)

� Is there much difference working on multicultural projectscompared to working on projects with only Swedes?

� What are the main problems that occur when working onmulticultural projects? Are there any recurrent problems? Inwhat way are these problems expressed? Is there a specificproblem that is of greater importance than the others?

� What characteristics are needed for a leader that managesmulticultural projects? Which one of theses characteristics arethe most important one?

� Have you noticed if there exists characteristics typical for aSwedish manager?

� When comparing the nationalities that you have been workingwith, which one resembles us Swedes the most? (Why?) Whichone is most different to us? In what way has this differencesshown? As a leader, what is important to be aware of in thesesituation?

� Have you consciously considered your management style? Areyou adjusting it when leading people from other cultures? If so,in what way?

� How does one solve intercultural crises? (Or are the problemsrelated to personality clashes?) Can you give us an example ofhow you have solved a crisis if you have experienced any?

Appendix 1

� What is of utmost importance to have in mind when managinga multicultural project?

� What are the pros and cons of a multicultural project?

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